


Orphans, Kingdoms

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken | Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
Genre: Active, Alternate Universe- Fewer Dragons, Alternate Universe- Less Meta Sexism, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Soldiers, Courtly Love, Diplomacy, Drama, Dueling, F/F, F/M, Family, Grief/Mourning, Intrigue, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, My Name is Ryan and in My Spare Time I Write Novels, Politics, Romance, Sloppy Makeouts, Slow Burn, Unresolved Sexual Tension, courting, hostages, it's like that, longfic, rough start, yknow the winter palace chapter of dragon age inquisition
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-27 02:02:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 48,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13870752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: Instead of staying behind when Gra takes the Altean garrison, Elice manages to escape with Marth-- but Marth has other plans, and charges back in, captured in Elice's place. With her family dead or presumed so, Elice has no choice but to escape to Talys with the remnants of the Altean army.Two years pass, and when Talys gets word that Archanea has been attacked and the princess fled to Aurelis, Elice can't sit idly by and let the continent crumble to Medeus' conquering, so she takes her army and goes to help. Princess Nyna is beautiful and capable, but she and Elice manage to get all over each others' last nerves, even though the both of them together are a tactical force to be reckoned with. And yet, such a relationship may one day bloom into love, even in the midst of the brutal Archanean War of Shadows...This is a retelling of Shadow Dragon but with Elice in Marth's place, less heterosexuality, less meta sexism, and way fewer unnecessary bandit battles. Updates whenever. Because I TOTALLY NEEDED another huge involved novel to worry about, right?





	1. Act 1: The League- Chapter 1: Altea, Fallen

**Author's Note:**

> when will i be stopped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Liza clicked her tongue. “Hush, now, there’ll be no talk of that,” she said, running her hand over Elice’s head. “Not before breakfast.”_
> 
> _“You know war doesn’t wait for breakfast,” Elice replied._
> 
> _“It does if I have anything to say about it,” Liza decided._
> 
> The Garrison falls, and Elice loses all the family she's ever known in one day.

The sun rose over the Altean garrison, shining through the wired glass of the windows on the eastern face. Altean and Gra soldiers walked the ramparts on their daily rounds, nodding acknowledgement to each other as they passed. Inside, too, life went on— the Altean royal family, kept safe while King Cornelius led the battle against Dolhr, Grust, and Macedon, going about their mornings as normal. While Queen Liza started the morning tea and checked for news from the battlefield, the young prince Marth slept through the sunrise. His elder sister Elice, however, didn’t sleep nearly as late as he did.  
  
Elice’s morning had started normally— she woke, dressed, washed her face, rubbed her eyes until they stopped feeling gummy, paused in front of the mirror to scowl at her reflection on her way out. Her reflection scowled back, but Elice shouldn’t expect anything different, since it was a mirror. She halfheartedly straightened her bangs only for them to fall back into frustratingly left-of-center, which she hated, and practiced her best good-morning smile she’d give to her mother later in the morning, which she also hated. Elice hated quite a few things about how she looked, but so far none of it had changed, so she just had to live with them.  
  
The pot of morning tea started whistling when Elice entered the dining room, as if announcing her presence. Breakfast wasn’t done, but it never was that early, and that suited Elice fine. Mother always rose earliest to make tea, anyway, and it was kind of nice enjoying her company before anyone else came out.  
  
Queen Liza smiled, taking the tea off the grate set on top of an opened tome— technically an improper use of such a tome, but Queen Liza was of the camp that said to use a gift if you had it, and Queen Liza definitely had magic to spare. She poured the water into three cups, already set out, because by this point this was routine, for herself, Elice, and Marth— when he got himself up.  
  
“Good morning, mother,” Elice said, seating herself at the table.  
  
“Good morning,” Liza replied. “Sleep well?”  
  
“I did, thank you.” Elice picked up her teacup and dropped two sugar cubes into the hot water, swirling it and watching them melt while the leaves steeped. She set a coaster on top to keep the heat in, then rested her elbows on the table— it wasn’t bad manners if there was no food out. “Any word from the front?”  
  
Liza smiled fondly. “None yet, though I imagine you’ll hear about it before I do, when it comes,” she said. “Considering how insistent you are.”  
  
Elice shrugged, though she couldn’t hide the fact that she preened a little. “If I’m to be a good queen someday, I have to remain informed,” she said. “Unlike _Marth_ , I can’t rely on charm alone.”  
  
“Ah, queen this, queen that,” Liza chided. “You’re still just a girl, Elice, you’ve time yet to learn and grow.”  
  
“I’m nineteen,” Elice protested.  
  
“And you’ll have wrinkles by twenty if you keep worrying over things that are supposed to be _my_ job,” Liza replied, but a smile wrinkled the corners of her eyes. She combed Elice’s hair behind her ears, and Elice knew better than to wiggle while she was doing that. “Your father and our allies with Gra have things well in hand, I’m sure.”  
  
“I just can’t stand not knowing for certain,” Elice confessed. “But if I were there, helping where it matters, then…”  
  
Liza clicked her tongue. “Hush, now, there’ll be no talk of that,” she said, running her hand over Elice’s head. “Not before breakfast.”  
  
“You know war doesn’t wait for breakfast,” Elice replied.  
  
“It does if I have anything to say about it,” Liza decided. “Now, where is breakfast? Cook usually has it out by now.”  
  
Elice glanced to the kitchen doors. Now that she noticed, she didn’t hear or smell the usual signs of breakfast— no sizzling meat or eggs, no baking bread. She frowned, standing up from the table. “Perhaps she slept late,” she suggested, but that seemed unlikely. “I’ll go look.”  
  
The kitchen was empty— yesterday’s dishes were cleaned and put away, but there wasn’t so much as a fire in the oven. It was just as everything had been left after cleaning up for dinner, like nobody had even come to start breakfast. Elice frowned, venturing past the countertops and into the larder. Nothing at all, not even sprung mousetraps.  
  
Elice’s gut twisted in worry. She started to make her way back out of the kitchen to relay her findings to Liza, picking up utensils as if her normal morning was hidden underneath one— and yet the spatula yielded nothing, and nor did the wooden spoon, the whisk, or the ladle.  
  
A strangled gasp from the other room. “Elice!”  
  
Cold seized Elice’s gut. She charged back into the dining room— perhaps providence that she had the meat fork in her hand— only to see soldiers of Gra with their spears drawn, slowly cornering her mother away from her tome on the table.  
  
“Mother!” Elice called, knowing it was pointless. The soldiers— soldiers Elice knew— turned in surprise, spear tips pointed right at her throat, and something instinctual in Elice knew they weren’t playing around. One charged towards her, and Elice’s mind blanked.  
  
The side of the spearhead slammed into her temple. Her head burst into pain. She staggered back, heart pounding. Liza shouted her name. Bells clanged. Her hand dug into the wooden handle of the meat fork.  
  
The spearhead hit again. They weren’t trying to kill her, it seemed, but they were doing a pretty bang-up job of the next best thing. Elice clenched her teeth. She slammed the handle of the meat fork as hard as she could into the soldier’s helmet.  
  
So that didn’t do as much as she’d hoped it would, but it was something. And she kept doing it, trying to do some kind of damage, until the helmet fell off and the soldier stumbled back, clutching his head. Elice heard nothing but the rush of blood in her ears. She drove the point of the meat fork into the soft flesh under the soldier’s ear.  
  
He screamed, a sound that gurgled as blood replaced his breath. But Elice had no time to reflect on what she’d done— she grabbed the other soldier by his breastplate and stabbed the fork into his elbow, then into his neck when the pain made him drop his lance. She shoved him aside. Her hands shook. Her head screamed. She dropped the fork.  
  
Liza took her hands. Blood smeared on her skin, marring her sleeves. How much was on Elice’s own? How much had splattered onto her bodice, soaked into the pretty pink fabric? If Elice looked down, the dark red staining her dress would remind her of the time she and some other noble friend back before the war began had stolen a bottle of red dinner wine from the cellar and tried to drink it like the grown-ups did, and they’d spilled it all over the pale fabric of her quilt. Except Elice wasn’t fifteen anymore and she hadn’t seen that friend in years, and it wasn’t wine. It wasn’t wine.  
  
“… Find Marth,” Liza was saying. The screaming in Elice’s head faded enough to warp her mother’s voice, pull her back to reality. “Elice? Elice, do you hear me? Do you hear me, little one?”  
  
There was blood on her hands. It wasn’t wine and yet that’s what it looked like as it stained the undersides of her nails and the creases in her palms. But it wasn’t wine. She swallowed, tried to center herself again. But her eyes shook, darting to the doorways. She felt the need to run, run, as far away from there as she could. Were more soldiers coming? She couldn’t hear over the beating of her heart. The sight of gushing blood replayed itself in front of her eyes like the wine spilling out of that doublet. It wasn’t wine. It wasn’t wine.  
  
Liza’s hands shook. She kissed Elice’s forehead, held her close like she could keep the world away like she could when Elice was little and her parents were titans, invincible, unshakable. “Elice, listen to me,” she said. “I need you to find Marth. I need you to make sure he’s safe. Do you understand?”  
  
Elice swallowed again. “I understand, mother,” she promised. “What happened?”  
  
“The messenger was lucky,” Liza said, nodding to the bloodstained letter left open on the table by the tea— probably still hot. “He got here before the soldiers did. Gra has betrayed us. They turned around and struck our forces from the inside. No one stood a chance.” Her face was grim— there was no luxury to sit and let the magnitude of the loss set in. There were only the facts— only herself, and Elice, and Marth, and a garrison full of enemies.  
  
The news sent cold down her spine like an icy finger. “They betrayed us? But why?”  
  
“Would that I knew,” Liza said mournfully. She released Elice to pick up her tome from the table. Elice felt her mother’s warmth drop away and yet resisted the urge to cower against it one more time.  
  
Elice’s mind raced. “We have to get out of here,” she said. “Marth—“  
  
“Find him,” Liza pressed. “I’ll be fine, Elice. I’ll meet you when you escape.”  
  
Elice swallowed. She took a step back and picked up her meat fork. “I will,” she said. “I’ll find him. I’ll keep him safe.” And she turned and ran, letting her instinct to run fuel her.  
  
Liza clasped her hands around her tome. “Naga protect us,” she prayed, because what more could she do?

* * *

Marth was in the throne room, clutching the hilt of a bloodied sword, in his nightshirt and with his bootlaces untied. His hair was unruly, but he had his diadem nestled in the midst of his blue curls as it always was, glinting gold and princely. “Sister!” he called as soon as he saw her approach, his face lighting up as if it were any other day with lessons and mealtimes and not a day they were fighting for their lives.  
  
Elice wrapped him in a hug. “Marth, listen to me,” she said tightly. “We need to escape the garrison.”  
  
Marth frowned. “But what about mother? Where is she? Did the enemies get her?”  
  
Fear crept up Elice’s neck. “She told me she’d meet us once we got out,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go.”  
  
“I don’t understand,” Marth said. “What’s happening?”  
  
Elice breathed. She had to stay strong, to steady herself, for Marth. “It’s father,” she said. “He was defeated in the battle with Dolhr and Grust.”  
  
“That’s impossible!” Marth protested. “Father could never be defeated!”  
  
“It was Gra,” Elice said. Her hands curled into fists, her right clutching the bloody meat fork tighter. “Our own allies struck him from behind. Every scout report I’ve seen says something different as to his safety, so I don’t… but Gra is trying to take the garrison, and we’ll surely be killed if we remain.”  
  
Marth clung to her dress. It was ruined by now, the hemline torn so she could run without stepping on it and the fine fabric soaked in dry and drying blood, but at least very little of it was hers. “I don’t believe it,” he mumbled. “Elice?”  
  
“We’ll be alright,” Elice promised, even if she didn’t believe it. “Come on. We need to get to safety.”  
  
“I’m scared,” Marth whispered.  
  
“Me, too,” Elice whispered back. Then she took a breath, and wiped her meat fork on her skirt. “Just don’t let go of my hand, Marth. I’ll get us both out.”  
  
Elice knew the Garrison like the back of her hand, even if it had suddenly become a battlefield, so she knew where the exits were. The chaos of Gra soldiers fighting Alteans gave them enough cover to slip through— not undetected, but anyone who noticed them couldn’t pursue through all the confusion. Elice’s grip on either Marth’s hand or her improvised weapon did not lessen until they’d left the garrison entirely, using the surrounding forest as cover from the Gra forces coming up the roads. When they emerged at a fork in the road away from the Garrison and Elice couldn’t hear the fighting anymore, she finally came to a stop.  
  
Marth plopped down on the ground, breathing heavily, and Elice couldn’t say she blamed him. She let her shaking legs lower her to the ground, dirt mingling with the bloodstains on her torn skirt, and it was all she could do to avoid collapsing herself. For a moment, that was all she did— take in shaky gulps of air through her aching lungs, let her racing heart slow its beating, soak in the fact that she was still alive.  
  
She was alive. Marth was alive. And for a blissful moment, that victory was all that mattered.  
  
She almost wanted to laugh. And then she did laugh, putting a hand to her spinning head and not even caring that it came away covered in blood. And it just kept coming, with enough force she wasn’t sure she could stop if she tried, even when Marth pushed himself into her arms like they were little again and he’d just had a nightmare. He might’ve been saying something. But as the adrenaline faded, so too did the hysteria, and reality replaced it. So when Elice’s throat ached and her lungs could breathe evenly again, she stopped. Breathed in. Remembered they weren’t out of the woods yet. Breathed out.  
  
She pulled back from Marth and looked him over— he was unkempt, sweaty, and looked like he’d just rolled out of bed and then rolled through the woods, but none of the blood staining his nightshirt seemed to be his.  
  
“Are you hurt?” she asked. Her voice sounded distant to her own ears, a constant ringing covering everything like a blanket. The pain set in, a dull ache that spiked with her heartbeat and echoed through her skull. “Marth? Are you alright?”  
  
“I’m fine,” he said— at least, that’s what Elice thought he said. “You’re bleeding.”  
  
She supposed she was. Elice wiped her hand on her skirt— it wasn’t like a little more blood mattered at this point— poked at the hot, sticky spot above her left eyebrow, and winced when it sent waves of pain through her skull. “Seems so,” she said. That would explain why she had to keep rubbing blood out of her eye. It must’ve been hers.  
  
“‘Seems so?’ You’re bleeding!” Marth insisted. “That’s all you have to say?”  
  
Elice nodded, at least she thought she did. Marth was clearly very upset, so theoretically, Elice should have some kind of reaction to that. Something had happened. Something had happened— The garrison had fallen and they’d fought their way out. Altea had fallen. Mother was inside. Or maybe outside, looking for them. Either way, she wasn’t there. Elice’s head hurt. Her knees hurt. Her chest hurt. Why? She’d escaped, fought, run for her life. Maybe her head hurting was from that spearhead. That would make sense. Why the spearhead? Why did she fight? The garrison had fallen. Gra had stabbed them in the back. She’d fought. She was bleeding. She was alive.  
  
Marth set his chin like he was trying not to cry— even if, if any was a time to cry, this was it. “What’s wrong with you?” he demanded. “I— okay. Okay. I’ll find mother.”  
  
“Marth, no,” Elice protested. “We should… we should find somewhere to hide. I promised mother I’d keep you safe.”  
  
“I’ll be quick, promise,” Marth insisted. “I’ll find her and if you stay here then I can find you again, and we can all get out together and find father and then—“ and Marth didn’t know what would happen after that, but he was thinking one step at a time. “Well, we’ll figure that out when we’re all together again.” And before Elice could hold him back, off he went, back through the undergrowth. Elice couldn’t process why, but that was a very, _very_ bad idea.  
  
But she didn’t have time to think on it. A horn blew from the garrison, and smoke rose from the signal tower. A victory for Gra, Elice thought. She never thought she’d see the day when Gra’s victory was Altea’s defeat.  
  
Elice heard the hoofbeats coming up the road too late— too late to duck into the shrubbery to hide, too late to run after Marth. She hauled herself to her feet, determined to go down fighting if this was to be her last stand, but what came around the bend in the fork was not an order of Gra cavalry, as she’d thought, but a single knight in scuffed armor with soot covering where crests would go. His helm hid his face, at least until he pulled it off to reveal raw shock written across very familiar features.  
  
Elice felt her shoulders relax. “Abel,” she called. “You’re alive!”  
  
“Try my best, your highness,” he said humbly, dismounting his horse before it came to a full stop. He looked a bit worse for wear, but Elice was too happy that someone on their side still lived to even think about that. He frowned, noticing the wound on Elice’s forehead, the blood on her dress, the twigs in her hair, the meat fork in her hand. “You’re injured.”  
  
“There’s no time for that,” Elice insisted. “Marth ran back up to the garrison— mother’s still in there, somewhere, I don’t know if she even made it out to meet us out here like she promised, I don’t know if Marth’s even still _alive_ , I don’t—“ her voice broke. Abel pulled a vulnerary from his pack, soaked a clean rag with it, and pressed it to Elice’s forehead. The smells of lemongrass and antiseptic filled her nose as the blood started to clot and the skin to heal. It hurt, but after all that’d happened, Elice barely flinched.  
  
“We’re not safe here,” Abel said gently, like he was afraid of breaking her with his words. “If we stay too long, we’ll lose everyone, and then Altea will be lost.”  
  
“Altea’s already lost if Marth and mother are dead,” Elice replied.  
  
“It still has you,” Abel told her, pulling the cloth away from her face. “But it won’t if you rush back into danger.”  
  
In that horrible moment, it struck her that Abel was right. She didn’t know the fates of her mother, her father, her brother— probably dead, or as good as dead, and her heart ached with a rawness that tore at her very soul when she thought of it. Some stupid, reckless part of her wanted more than anything to leave Abel in her dust, to run back into the castle and at least face her death with her family, but her legs remained rooted to the spot. She was the last of Altea’s royals. If she fell, so did Altea.  
  
With all her being, she wished she could relive yesterday, not because yesterday had been particularly unusual or fun, but because Marth and her mother were there and alive and safe, and she could reach out and touch them if she so much as lifted her hand. She could lean her head on her mother’s shoulder and kiss her cheek goodnight, or muss Marth’s hair when he said something stupid. She could read her books nestled in the softness of her bedding while the sunshine faded outside. She could bout with Marth in the yard until her arms were too sore to lift the practice blade, and she could feel the soreness and then the relief when she dunked her head in the water tank and came up looking like a swamp monster, and laugh at Marth when he teased her for it, and listen to him shriek and laugh when she held out her arms to chase him and soak him, too. She could do so many little things that she took for granted because she assumed that, even though she knew about war and what it entailed, even though she was educated as a future queen would be, she had never even dreamed she’d see war before her twentieth year.  
  
She recalled the conversation she and her mother had that morning— about how war doesn’t wait for breakfast, but it will if her mother has anything to say about it. It was bitterly amusing, given what’d happened.  
  
Abel offered his hand to help her onto the back of his horse. Reluctantly, she took it, and left her home behind.


	2. Act 1: The League- Chapter 2: The Voyage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The weather was mild; the winds were fair. The captain had said that if the winds keep up, they should reach the mouth of the mainland in about two hours, and port in southern Aurelis without much hassle. They were far enough away from any shore that there was no land in sight— just blue, blue, in every direction Elice could look. Aurelis’ eastern coast and the isle of Talys looked close on a map, and when compared to larger distances like Talys to Pyrathi or Archanea to Macedon, the distance was pathetically small. And yet, even with fair winds, it the voyage to Aurelis took hours. The world, in actuality, was much, much bigger than it looked on a map, and Elice had only just begun to wrap her mind around it._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Elice's journey towards reclaiming her homeland is only just beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise bitch

Elice’s stomach was in knots.  
  
Not because she was seasick— Elice had been on boats before, too many times to count, and had never had trouble with keeping herself steady on the slowly-rocking deck of a ship. No, Elice felt queasy for any number of other reasons, all of which boiled down to fear. What would she face, when she led her pathetic army of twelve ( _people_ , that was; not twelve units, twelve _people_ ) to Archanea’s aid? Would her help be enough to beat back the threat of the Dolhrian Empire, the very same one that had destroyed Elice’s home, too? Would what she’d studied of tactics and command be enough to keep the remnants of her people safe as she led the effort to take back their country? And how did she know she wasn’t just leading her soldiers, soldiers who she knew would give their lives for her, into a mindless slaughter?  
  
The last doubt shook her more than she wanted to admit. It’d been drilled into her since she was small that although knights were prepared to die for their queen, the queen had the responsibility to make sure it never came to that. And yet, there she was, knowing what her campaign could become, and knowing that although it would not be her blade that’d be buried in the hearts of her soldiers, nor would it be her hands that pushed it in (should, Naga forbid, it come to that), it would be her name the soldiers would curse with their dying breaths, her voice that ordered them to their execution.  
  
She supposed it was providence that she didn’t get seasick. Physical nausea was the last thing she needed with thoughts like that on her mind.  
  
A whoop of delight knocked Elice from her brooding, and half a second later, a huge, winged shadow passed overhead. A snow-white pegasus had leapt off the deck of their ship— the _Marisa_ —  and soared into the open sky, its hooves skimming along the surface of the water just enough to kick up a spray. Then it beat up, up into the clear sea air, dancing across the salty breeze and having a grand old time doing loops around the mast and kicking at the tiny crests of the waves on the sea, all while its rider, the princess of Talys herself, laughed as if without a care in the world. She waved at Elice as she zipped by, and Elice, on principle, waved back.  
  
“Caeda, you’re supposed to be _scouting_ ,” Caeda’s bodyguard, a strong, stern-faced man named Ogma, called over the wind and sea. “Not playing around.”  
  
“I _am_ scouting,” Caeda called back, though she pulled her pegasus to a hover that kept in pace with the movement of the ship. “And I don’t see anything of note on any horizon, so I’m scouting my mount’s capabilities in battle. Isn’t that right, Eirika?” She rubbed her mount’s neck affectionately, and the pegasus nickered agreement.  
  
Ogma let out a long-suffering sigh. Knowing he couldn’t raise any real objection, Caeda gave him an all-too-charming grin, and kept showing off. Personally, Elice quite liked Caeda. She was sixteen— Marth’s age, or at least the age Marth would’ve been— and she had the same kind of irresistible charm that Marth had possessed, but that was where the similarities ended. Caeda was lanky and tanned and had sharp gray eyes and a perpetual gold-brown sunburn on her cheeks, chest, and shoulders, where Marth was— or at least had been— shorter and still soft with baby fat, olive skin soft and smooth, except for his elbows and knees, skinned where he tripped and ran into things because he was still growing into himself. Elice had come to the decision a while back that Marth was dead, because it seemed unlikely he could’ve escaped with the garrison so full of enemy soldiers, but sometimes she looked at Caeda and the thoughts crossed her mind of how he’d have grown in the past two years— if he’d have grown out of the baby fat on his cheeks, if the blisters on his soft palms from where he held his sword would've turned to calluses, if he’d have started growing the beginnings of the rather impressive beard their father had kept carefully trimmed as long as Elice had been alive.  
  
Thoughts of Marth made her chest ache. Her chest ached quite often when she saw Caeda.  
  
“That girl is going to be the death of me,” Ogma muttered. “We’re at _war_.”  
  
“All the more reason to let her play around, if you ask me,” Elice found herself commenting. “Who knows when she’ll get a chance to do so again?  
  
Ogma grunted a reluctant agreement. “Suppose it’s not my place to comment,” he admitted. Then he glanced over at Elice, noted who she was, and bobbed his head politely. “Your highness.”  
  
“Whatever that’s worth anymore,” Elice muttered. She looked back at Caeda, then to Ogma again. “What do you think of all this?”  
  
Ogma quirked an eyebrow. “That’s a loaded question for a man you’ve just met, milady.”  
  
“I suppose, but will you still answer it?”  
  
“Yes, though I’d wish to know why you ask.”  
  
Elice shrugged, looking at the horizon where blue and blue met in a hard line. The weather was mild; the winds were fair. The captain had said that if the winds keep up, they should reach the mouth of the mainland in about two hours, and port in southern Aurelis without much hassle. They were far enough away from any shore that there was no land in sight— just blue, blue, in every direction Elice could look. Aurelis’ eastern coast and the isle of Talys looked close on a map, and when compared to larger distances like Talys to Pyrathi or Archanea to Macedon, the distance was pathetically small. And yet, even with fair winds, it the voyage to Aurelis took hours. The world, in actuality, was much, much bigger than it looked on a map, and Elice had only just begun to wrap her mind around it.  
  
“I want an outside perspective,” Elice said. “I know what I think of this quest, and I believe I’m acting in Altea’s best interests to take back our homeland and unite against a greater threat. My knights are honor-bound to serve me, trusting that I represent the desires of Altea as a country, thus they will follow where I lead. Caeda is the same, representing the desires of Talys to aid her fellow countries. But this isn’t about me, and it isn’t about representing a country, and it isn’t about Altea. So as an outsider to these drives, where do you stand, ser Ogma?”  
  
Ogma chewed on this. “The easy answer would be to say that I follow Caeda where she goes, as I’m honor-bound to do, like your knights are honor-bound to follow you,” he said. “But the question as to where do I stand— you’re not asking about my role as a vassal of Talys.”  
  
“You’re right, I’m not,” Elice said. “Bringing me back to my first question— what do you think of all this as one man with his own thoughts, not as a vassal?”  
  
“To be frank, milady,” Ogma replied. “I think this is lunacy. I think you’re walking us all into the jaws of Death himself.”  
  
“Ah.” The word left a bitter taste on her tongue. She’d assumed as much, but it felt different hearing someone else say it.  
  
“But,” Ogma continued. “That doesn’t mean I won’t do it.”  
  
Elice furrowed her brow. “As a vassal, or of your own free will?”  
  
“Of my own free will.”  
  
“I find that hard to believe, ser Ogma.”  
  
“You truly think me so selfish?”  
  
“Well, I hardly know you.”  
  
Ogma let out a low chuckle that turned a corner of his mouth upwards, an emotion that was gone as soon as it came. “A fair point. But then, I suppose you’ll just have to trust me.”  
  
“Why, then,” Elice pressed. “Why are you knowingly walking to your death?”  
  
“Because, as I see it,” Ogma said. “It’s the right thing to do. And I think you agree, milady.”  
  
“How do you know that?”  
  
“Because if you didn’t, you would be giving orders from your throne, not leading the charge yourself. Not to be presumptuous, of course. I hardly know you.”  
  
Elice cracked a smile. “You’d be presuming correctly, in this case, but I wouldn’t make a habit of it.”  
  
Ogma bobbed his head. “I wouldn’t dream of it, milady.”  
  
Sometime during the conversation, Caeda had stopped playing. Her pegasus had perched at the tip of the mast, and if Elice squinted against the bright sunlight, she could see the blinding glint of light off the metal rim of Caeda’s spyglass. Elice frowned.  
  
“See anything, Caeda?” Elice called.  
  
“I see sails,” Caeda called back. “About five knots out, moving closer.”  
  
Elice felt cold. “Dolhrian?”  
  
“I don’t think so.” Caeda frowned at the spyglass, adjusted the focus ring, and jerked back in surprise. “Pirates!”  
  
Ogma ran to the opposite railing and squinted, shielding his eyes from the sun. Elice tried, but she couldn’t see anything that’d mark the ships as pirate ships— no skull-and-crossbones flags, no blood spattered on the helm, no screaming mermaid masthead.  
  
Ogma cursed in some other language Elice would’ve guessed was Pyrathi, but she could’ve been wrong. “Galder Pirates,” he said, as the rest of the soldiers— nine of them, which made a pretty pathetic-looking army to hold off a pirate attack— rushed out onto the deck. Elice clung to the railing, watching as the ship sounded a massive, tooth-shaking horn and cut a clean course right through the waves.  
  
“They’re ramming!” Jagen shouted. “Captain, can this ship take a hit?”  
  
The captain, a wizened-looking old man with more beard than head, scoffed. “Aye, she can, but not many. Brace!”  
  
Elice ducked and covered, clinging to the railing for purchase. A second later, the pirate ship rammed into the _Marisa_. Wood splintered against an impact that turned Elice’s muscles into jelly, the ship listing dangerously to the side and then slamming back onto the surface with a massive _slap_. Water splashed and spilled over the sides, soaking the deck in freezing seawater. Elice didn’t dare let go until the rocking stopped and she could hear the pirates yelling, yelling words Elice couldn’t make out over the noise of the waves and the spooked horses belowdecks neighing in fear and confusion, because you’re not exactly privy to every little thing that’s going on when you’re a horse.  
  
Elice pulled herself back to her shaking legs. Ropes on hooks dug into the side, thrown from the pirate’s ship, which Elice didn’t register as being ways for the pirates to board the _Marisa_ until Jagen shouted at her to get back, and the scarred, ugly face of a pirate appeared immediately to Elice’s right.  
  
“‘Hoy there, girlie,” he said, grinning dangerously.  
  
Elice blinked. Jagen kept shouting. The pirate drew a knife. Elice elbowed him in the nose.  
  
The surprise did him in. Elice heard bone crack. A spray of blood landed on her blouse. The pirate howled at the sudden pain, clutching the ship with one hand and his broken nose with the other. Elice brought the handle of her dagger down on his fingers with all her strength. The pirate let go, fell towards the sea, and knocked one of his buddies off the rope on the way down. The both of them landed with a splash in the brine.  
  
“That was _amazing!”_ Caeda yelled over the battle noise, her pegasus flying down, kicking a pirate in the head, and turning back to the air, dodging crudely-made arrows. Easy for her to say— Caeda hadn’t seen a real battle until now, either.  
  
Turning to Caeda was a mistake. The business end of a warhammer slammed her aside. Pain erupted up Elice’s arm and shoulder, but she didn’t have the time to feel it. Another pirate, bigger and angrier than the one Elice had knocked overboard, swung his warhammer at her again. Elice ducked just in time for the hammer to slam into the railing, making a splintery dent.  
  
The pirate growled. Elice flipped her dagger the right way around in her hand, though she was under no mistaken impressions that it’d impress anybody. She ducked low and swiped, cutting a superficial gash in the pirate’s side. The hammer came again, slamming her to the deck. She stabbed at his ankle. He kicked, catching her hurt arm. Her vision went white with pain.  
  
Someone stronger than her— Jagen, probably— hauled her up and shoved her towards a cover made with a stack of heavy crates. Elice’s heart beat loud in her ears, too loud, too loud over the noise of the battle. She ducked under a handaxe that passed over her head and clanged ineffectively against Draug’s shield. There was blood, blood on her shirt, her trousers, her dagger, on the wooden deck. The ship creaked and moaned as the battle waged. Alarm bells echoed in her head. The garrison was under attack and mother was dead and Marth was still inside, and the stuff on her clothes wasn’t wine, wasn’t wine.  
  
In a horrible instant, Elice remembered what she’d said to her mother in the morning— that if she were out there, on the battlefield, helping where it mattered, she’d said, she’d be more at ease. And yet there she was, a dagger in her bloodstained hands, unable to do anything but take hits and tremble and listen, listen to the bells in her head and stare at the crimson soaking into her blouse.  
  
“There are too many,” she heard Jagen shout over the noise. His armor clanked, dull pirate blades sliding off him effortlessly like the bulwark he’s always been, but even Jagen would go down if enemy numbers were high enough. “We’re overrun! Your highness!”  
  
Red dripped off his armor. It wasn’t wine.  
  
Elice breathed in, out, in, with the beating of her heart, pushing air through her lungs despite panic wanting to take it away. _Think, Elice, think,_ she told herself, begged herself, past shouting and alarm bells and cold, paralyzing fear. What did she have? What could she do?  
  
She had a vulnerary, and she had a dagger, and she had her wits. Admittedly, not much to work with.  
  
But first things came first. With her good arm, the one that wasn’t screaming whenever she tried to move it, she tried to tug down her neckline enough to get at the pain— broken bones, no doubt, by the way her arm was swelling up and turning sickening shades of purple and black. She gave up and cut it apart, her dagger tearing the fabric with ease. She yanked the cork open with her teeth and dribbled the healing medicine over the swelling. She shut her eyes tight and bit into the cork against the blinding heat of her bones coming back together. The strong fumes made her eyes water almost as much as the smells of blood from the pirate battle. The pain faded, though, and left her with an arm that could move again, and a head clearer than it had been. So she looked at what she had, and she thought.  
  
Elice looked at the medicine bottle in her hand. She got a crazy idea— but since the smart ideas had all fled for the hills, she had no choice but to take the leap. She took the discarded sleeve of her shirt and ripped apart a strip of it, plugging the mouth of the bottle with cloth. She shook it up, letting the liquid soak the cloth fibers in the bottle, and drew on the magic she knew ran through her veins to call a spark to her fingertips.  
  
This was a terrible idea. She stood up, yelled for everyone to stand back, lit the outside cloth on fire, and chucked the vulnerary right at the pirates slowly cornering her knights.  
  
A direct hit. Screams of agony filled the air with the smell of burning hair and flesh as the fire spread across the group of pirates— about six of them, if Elice counted right. Taking advantage of the confusion, Draug yelled a guttural, wordless battle cry and charged the pirates with his shield out front, knocking them all off the Marisa and into the ocean with a splash. The captain shouted an order at the ship’s mages, who blasted the sails with wind conjured from their tomes. The bow of the ship listed up, up as the ship picked up speed, which the rest of the pirates didn’t care about at all as they turned tail and abandoned ship, splashing into the ocean with their less-lucky brethren. The gale didn’t stop until the pirate ship was far away, almost vanished from view.  
  
The battle was over. Elice had survived.  
  
After the stunned silence, a cheer went up among the knights. Elice let out a breath, leaning against the railing, though it was short-lived since Caeda jumped off her pegasus and crashed into Elice with a tight hug. Jagen patted her shoulder, which probably would’ve knocked her over if Elice hadn’t been holding onto the rail.  
  
“I can’t— _believe_ — that just happened,” Caeda squeaked, letting go of Elice to bounce giddily from foot to foot like she’d just watched the battle rather than lived it. Elice supposed seeing a battle from above was different from actually fighting on the ground, where the action was.  
  
“That was quick thinking, with the fire, your highness,” Jagen said.  
  
“Thanks,” Elice managed.  
  
“It was _amazing_ ,” Caeda gushed. “You were _incredible!”_  
  
“What’s important is that we all survived it,” Malledeus cut in, emerging from belowdecks with Father Wrys, staff in hand. “Your highness, are you injured?”  
  
To tell the truth, Elice wasn’t sure. “Just shaken, I think,” she said. Caeda, meanwhile, clutched her stomach and retched over the side of the ship.  
  
“Battle will do that to you,” Abel said helpfully, while Father Wrys held a medicine-soaked cloth over his swollen black eye. “You adapt to it after a while.”  
  
That left a sour taste in Elice’s mouth. “Wonderful,” she said.  
  
Jagen helped her sit down on the deck next to Abel. She mutely peeled off the rest of her shirt to let Father Wrys check her bruising ribs and the bones in her hurt arm. He tutted and mumbled some medical nonsense that Elice didn’t have the processing power to understand, still reeling at the fact that that’d actually worked, and held his staff over her arm. The ribs, it seemed, she’d just have to live with.  
  
Malledeus eased himself down to speak on her level. “That was excellent thinking,” he said. “The trick with the fire.”  
  
“I still can’t believe it worked,” Elice admitted.  
  
“So it often goes.” Malledeus nodded sagely. “But I doubt we’d have survived the battle if you hadn’t done so. With our small numbers, we cannot rely on solely brute force. Tactics will be the key to our survival until we can join with the Aurelians.”  
  
Not for the first time, Elice felt a flicker of self-doubt. Would her tactics really be enough to keep her army safe until then? And even so, what came next? There were far too many unknowns for Elice to really be comfortable at the helm of the campaign, and yet she couldn’t just back out because she was afraid of the responsibility.  
  
But then, who ever said being the queen was easy?


	3. Act 1: The League- Chapter 3: Lefcandith Gauntlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I thought the Altean royal family all perished,” the Red Dragoon said. A whisper went through the Macedonians and Aurelians alike._
> 
> _“I like to think I’m a bit tougher than that, Red Dragoon,” Elice replied. “And what of you?”_
> 
> _The Red Dragoon remained silent._
> 
> Elice meets a new face during a battle en route to Aurelis's capital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guess what its my bday tomorrow im turning 20

Elice had never seen a city that oozed stubbornness quite as much as Galder.  
  
She was led to believe it was an Aurelian thing— pounding the natural shape of the land until it suited the people’s purpose. The far-eastern Aurelian march of Solomon in its natural state was a cold, damp bog with soil too soupy to support very much, and hurricanes pounded the coast so often it’d turn any crops to pulp. They couldn’t do much about the weather, but the Aurelians did have concrete, and by Naga, they were going to use it. So they built up and out, constructing levees and bulwarks to keep out the vicious tides, filling frames with smelted iron and concrete and building up from there, and adapting to the soggy gradient coastline by digging into the sand until it turned to clay, building docks over the water and connecting it to the city proper with a network of stairs and roadways. Huge pipes of copper and lead set in the concrete foundation carried wastewater away from the city to dump it into the marsh, which nobody saw a problem with because conservationism hadn’t yet been invented. In some ways, Elice supposed it was admirable— displaying a willingness to adapt to problems building a city in a marsh entails, but mostly it just led her to assume that Aurelians don’t know when to quit.  
  
As far as Elice could tell, Galder didn’t look like it’d been touched by the war, despite the conquered Archanea just on the other side of the valley. Although the westbound road they took wound through the swamp, occasionally Elice could look through the twisting trees to see the water of the valley and the faint strip of land— rolling hills and thick forests and fields swaying in the breeze that made up the Archanean march of Lefcandith, which the river valley was named for. From where Elice walked, it didn’t look like it’d been touched by war either, and yet there they were.  
  
“Pretty sight,” Abel commented, from his horse. “Archanea’s real lovely this time of year.”  
  
“You’ve been?” Elice asked.  
  
“I have, your highness,” Abel replied with a respectful nod. “The training exercises in Pales a few years back. You should’ve seen it— the Millennium Court was all decorated for the spring festival. And the Valleroses themselves came down to see the practice bouts between us and their Archanean troops.”  
  
“The whole royal family?” Elice arched an eyebrow.  
  
“I saw them,” Abel insisted. “Just as golden and glittery and beautiful as the city.”  
  
“So entranced was he by the beauty of the Vallerose family,” Cain added, riding up on Abel’s other side, “That when Princess Nyna cast her gaze his way to watch his turn at bout, he fell right off his horse the moment the other knight’s lance struck him.” Cain grinned impishly, watching Abel’s ears go red.  
  
“You didn’t need to tell her highness that,” Abel muttered.  
  
“And,” Cain kept going. “He was so embarrassed that he didn’t get back up, just lay there with his face in the dirt, and a cleric had to hurry over and check to see he was still alive.”  
  
“Oh, shove off,” Abel groaned, leaning over to cuff Cain’s armored shoulder. His gauntlet clanged off the blue-tinted steel. “You would’ve done the same.”  
  
“No, I wouldn’t have,” Cain retorted. “Because _I_ know how to hold a lance when a pretty girl looks my way.”  
  
“You’d have dropped it if it’d been Prince Dorian,” Abel shot right back. He’d evidently struck a nerve, because Cain opened his mouth in offense, clapped it shut, and let his cheeks turn scarlet instead.  
  
Elice chuckled, but couldn’t quite muster the same amount of mirth at Abel’s expense that Cain could. She’d met the Vallerose family maybe twice before in her life, and she’d been a child both times, so her memories of even the more recent event were a bit fuzzy. And then the knowledge that the family was dead save for the princess, who’d been forced to flee, and the beautiful city of Pales was full of the same forces that’d taken Elice’s home and family away from her, kind of killed the humor. Elice didn’t talk much for the rest of the march through the swamp.  
  
Once they crossed the territory line from Solomon into Elsdet, the swamp turned to ranges of foothills covered in rolling grasses and thick forests, and the log-and-gravel road turned into cobblestones with patches of clover and dandelion growing between the cracks, trodden-on but not deterred. Flat-bottommed barges drifted downstream back towards Solomon, their drivers armed with big poles to push the barges through the mud and reeds. Elice spotted riverside garrisons set up on the Archanea side of the valley, flying the golden flags of the Dolhrian Empire instead of Archanea’s green. She doubted those garrisons saw much action, unless it was Empire policy to fire upon every Aurelian merchant ship that passed downriver. But that sounded a little ridiculous, even for Dolhr.  
  
Caeda, who’d been sent ahead to scout, greeted them on the road leading through the outskirts of Liemann village. She waved as the caravan approached— three horses and a supply wagon, which Elice couldn’t imagine was particularly impressive— but her face was grave, so Elice guessed there was bad news before Caeda even said anything.  
  
“Bad news,” Caeda said, confirming Elice’s guess. “A division of the Empire has taken up occupying the Aurelian fort to the north of the village. They took it before I could be of much help to the Aurelians stationed here. They haven’t made any moves to attack the village, though, so I think they must be waiting for orders. But we’ll have to get through the fort in order to move through towards Dorran.”  
  
Malledeus tutted in discontent, lifting himself out of the supply wagon and cracking the joints in his spine. He leaned on his cane and rubbed at his chin. “If the Empire is this far south, it could mean they’ve already reached Dorran and the castle,” he mused. “We may be too late.”  
  
“We’ll _definitely_ be too late if we don’t move now,” Elice replied. “Caeda, you said they might be waiting for orders? I want you to fly around the perimeter, just out of range of their ballista. See if you can spot and intercept any messengers.”  
  
Caeda frowned. “Shouldn’t I stay with you, in case we need to fight?”  
  
Elice felt a twinge of guilt at the idea of putting Caeda back into battle— she’d already made herself sick after battle once, and that’d been when her role was to throw her spear at pirates from a distance and immediately retreat back into the air. Elice could only imagine how she’d react in ground combat with an actual army.  
  
“I don’t want you getting sick again,” Elice said. “I think it’d be better if you stayed in the sky.”  
  
“Don’t patronize me,” Caeda protested. “I _can_ fight.”  
  
“What her highness means,” Jagen said pointedly. “Is that you’re the only one of us who can circle and intercept any orders for the Empire. Cutting off their means of communication means they’d be acting without orders, which could land them in a lot of trouble.”  
  
Caeda didn’t like that any better, but she nodded anyway. “I can do that,” she decided. “What about you?”  
  
Malledeus looked to Elice. “Your highness?”  
  
Elice thought about it. “What are their numbers, Caeda, did you see?”  
  
“Four ballista mounted on the corners of the fort, six ground cavalry divisions, four armor infantry divisions, and a division of archers split amongst the formation,” Caeda recited, like she was reading off a scenario card for a war game. Malledeus wrote down what she said in his notebook. “That’s all I saw. The Aurelian division captain might know more.”  
  
“We should speak with him,” Elice decided. “Caeda, you go ahead and keep a look out for those messengers. If you succeed, find us again.”  
  
Caeda saluted and climbed back on her pegasus, taking off with a gust of wind. Elice couldn’t deny that she felt a little jumpy— strategizing for a battle felt different when you didn’t have an army, and you were the one fighting.  
  
The Aurelians, as it turned out, hadn’t heard any more than Caeda, but their scouts had reported the same thing. What surprised Elice, though, was that they’d been expected.  
  
“Dorran got word of your coming to assist two days ago, your highness,” the captain told Elice, standing up straight despite his dented armor and bandaged leg. “Unfortunately, the Empire heard, too. They sent the division here to stop you before you could get to the capital.”  
  
“What of the capital,” Elice pressed. “Is it still standing?”  
  
“Aye, though it isn’t looking good,” the captain said grimly. “Dorran’s a fortress, but the Empire’s got it under siege. Trying to starve them out.”  
  
“We’ll get there to aid as soon as we can,” Elice promised.  
  
The captain cleared his throat. “Pardon me for asking so roughly, your highness,” he began. “But where’s the army? Word from Dorran said— well, we’d _assumed_ —“  
  
“You assumed wrong,” Elice replied. “This is the army. Take it or leave it.”  
  
“Your _highness_ ,” Jagen chided. Elice ignored him.  
  
The captain looked uncomfortable. “Of course, your highness,” he said. “Er— my men who are able will be ready to move according to your orders.”  
  
Elice nodded in approval. “See that they do,” she said. The captain bowed his head and took his leave, seeing to his remaining soldiers. Elice scanned the sky, catching a glimpse of Caeda on her perimeter scan, and was about to discuss tactics with Malledeus when she saw Jagen’s disapproving face.  
  
“Your highness,” he said. “You could stand to choose your words a bit more carefully.”  
  
“There’s no point in wasting time with mincing words, Jagen,” Elice replied. “The sooner we break the Empire’s hold on that fort, the sooner we can get to Dorran to aid the Aurelians and Princess Nyna, like we promised we would.”  
  
“I admire your determination to make good on your promises, milady,” Jagen insisted. “But running a country means being prepared to deal with people who may not appreciate your… honesty.”  
  
_That sounds like their problem,_ Elice thought, and were she the stubborn, foolish teenager she had been before Altea fell, she would’ve said so. But Elice was a grown woman now, and could recognize when Jagen was trying to teach her something. Instead she held in a sigh. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “ _After_ we free Dorran.”  
  
Jagen sighed. That was the best he was going to get.  
  
Even with the division of the Aurelian army boosting their numbers, the combined force Elice led did not look overly robust. Half the soldiers from Aurelis were still wounded, but not gravely enough they were content to stay in the village. Elice’s army, still, was a handful of actual soldiers, two old men that couldn’t fight or defend themselves, a teenager on a flying horse, and herself, a princess with a dagger and a crazy plan.  
  
She glanced back at the rest of her army, catching Ogma’s eye. He gave her a nod, but his words echoed in Elice’s head: _I think this is lunacy. I think you’re walking us all into the jaws of Death himself._  
  
Lunacy sounded about right, but what other option did she have? She raised her dagger, steel blade glinting in the bright Aurelian sunlight, and shouted a single word: _charge_.  
  
It was a brilliantly simple plan. Dolhr’s forces were placed, in units, in a reverse V-shape with the fort at the apex— the perfect position to sweep in and cut them off like a big pair of scissors. And it would’ve worked, had the army been a full army, like both Dolhr and Aurelis seem to have assumed Elice would bring. But a pinscher formation like that took time to pull off, and evading it would take speed that an army didn’t have.  
  
Elice, however, didn’t have an army. And that was exactly what she wanted.  
  
The Dolhrians closed in from both sides, but at the same time, the Aurelian army moved up to block their advance, giving time for Jagen, Cain, and Abel to spur their horses into a gallop and for Elice to vault back into the supply wagon, running up and clinging to the front while Draug, the reins of the two draft horses wrapped around his forearms, snapped them into full speed. The crates of rations and supplies crashed into each other in the back. The rest of Elice’s army, those without mounts, could only cling to the boards and try not to get thrown out.  
  
The wind rushed past Elice’s cheeks, whipping her hair into her face. The sounds of battle clogged her ears with noise. Taking point, Jagen’s horse rode fast, his lance cutting through any Dolhrians that might manage to break past the Aurelians. The wagon bumped and bounced along the road, creaking in protest. Caeda circled overhead, a lone pegasus in a sky painted in the blues and yellows and oranges of early evening, a vision in classic Talysi silver and turquoise. It would’ve been a beautiful scene if Elice weren’t standing on a wagon speeding through a battlefield.  
  
For what it was worth, the plan seemed to be working. The walls of the fort seemed to stretch taller the closer they got, almost arcing menacingly over Elice’s head. The whole thing was one fort, but the road cut right through the middle, so the fort was four towers connected by hallways on either side. The ballista swiveled, training themselves on the speeding cart, but even the most experienced ballistician couldn’t hit a target moving at their speed. The Dolhrians did try, though, and Elice ducked automatically when a massive pike flew over the wagon and embedded itself in the dirt beside the road, smashing aside the other Dolhrian knights like a stack of children’s building blocks.  
  
They were nearly there, nearly there, _nearly_ there— and then Jagen’s horse whinnied and reared, and Draug had to yank the wagon to a sudden stop. Elice flew forward, her own weight wrenching her hand from the wagon frame. Elice shook the confusion from her head and pulled herself back upright, and she was about to ask what the problem was, when she saw the blockade.  
  
A wall of dark gray tower shields stood in their way, each one gleaming with the emblem of a ferocious hawk stamped in gold like the intricate filigree curls trimming the knights’ armor. It was the same hawk that flew proudly on the red-and-black flags hanging from high points on the fort, alongside the ever-present golden banners with charging black oxen that represented Dolhr. _Macedonians, not Dolhrians_ , Elice realized grimly. Well, that was just wonderful. The entire fort was full of Macedonians.  
  
The fort’s general, the one in the middle, looked to be the biggest and meanest of the knight blockade. He was sneering at Elice as if demanding how she has the audacity to set foot in his line of vision, and looked exactly like the kind of person to think he’s destined for greatness while doing absolutely nothing to obtain it. He had an oily brown mustache and pushed-back hair to match, that held a sheen like the entire thing was made of glossed plaster. Other than that remarkable display of ugliness, he was utterly forgettable.  
  
He pointed his lance at Elice. “Insurgent army,” he said, letting the word curl off his tongue. Elice felt the need to bathe just listening to him. “As an act of mercy, I will grant you a chance to beg for your life before crushing you beneath the heel of the Dolhrian Empire. What are your final words?”  
  
Elice grit her teeth and drew her knife. “The heel, you say?” she taunted. “I should think you’re more akin to toe fungus.”  
  
Oily Mustache Knight snarled. “Insolence!” he spat. “You die today, rebel scum!” He clanged his spear on his shield, and the rest of the knights followed suit.  
  
Preparing to fight, the rest of the group jumped out of the wagon, raising their weapons. Jagen placed himself at Elice’s side with his lance raised. Stupidly, Elice stood her ground.  
  
But the charge never came. Instead a roar sounded from the woods beyond the fort, a deafening sound that all but halted the rest of the battlefield. A huge shadow thirty feet across leapt over the row of knights, who scattered in absolute terror. The rest of the Macedonians bolted for the temporary camps they’d waited in formation. Some of the Aurelians stared in awe, but most backed up, clinging to lance hilts with shaky hands. Even the general himself looked a bit strained, and took several steps back into the relative safety nearest the forts.  
  
A massive dragon the size of a house, mottled olive green and with a tough hide marred with grayish battle scars, planted its huge, taloned feet in the road. Its wings were pulled in, but Elice didn’t doubt they’d destroy the fort if they were spread. Its tail swayed low to the ground. It had its massive scaly head lowered, bright yellow eyes blinking their double lids and staring directly at Elice. There was a sound like a constant avalanche through the ringing in Elice’s ears, and Elice felt the blood drain from her face when she realized that that was the creature growling. Its blood-stained rows of top and bottom teeth were crooked and broken but still blade-sharp and at least twice as long as Elice’s dagger, which suddenly looked like a toothpick in her hand.  
  
And that was saying nothing of its rider— a woman with brilliant red hair, short and messy around her head, and gleaming red armor scuffed with the evidence of recent battles. Like her mount, the rider was a titan. She hefted a huge axe like it was nothing, its blade lethal blackened steel with a hilt wrapped in red and black leather stamped with curly golden accents. Even from a distance, she was statuesque, and Elice didn’t doubt that under the layers of armor and leathers, muscles rippled with raw power and discipline. Her armor covered her from the neck down, bright red, unlike the rest of the Macedonians, with black leathers instead, and a mask shaped like a wyvern’s jaw covered the lower half of her face, preventing Elice from judging her age, but she didn’t look as old as, say, Jagen. The metal rose up to meet her forehead, covering her eyes with a pane of glass, curved and tinted to keep visibility but avoid the wind in the sky and the sharp glare of the sun. Although the mask matched her distinguished red and gold, and the wyvern-snout shape was certainly thematically appropriate, Elice couldn’t help but be reminded of how one muzzles a dog they don’t want biting.  
  
The general (Elice had almost forgotten he was there), banged his shield with his spear again. For a fraction of a second, Elice thought she saw the dragon rider flinch, but it must’ve been her imagination.  
  
“Red Dragoon,” General Grease shouted. “Kill them! Grant no quarter!”  
  
The Red Dragoon said nothing. She raised her axe. Three pegasi circled down from the fort’s towers, each rider in Macedon’s black armor and red leathers, each pegasus colored brown and white like a hawk’s wings and wearing the same black armor. The riders looked Macedonian, but Elice couldn’t see much of any of their features, either, since a pegasus knight’s helmet covered the eyes, too, with lensed visors that folded down and came to a point at the nose. From what little Elice could tell, though, they didn’t look very old, either— the one in the middle looked about Elice’s age, the one on the right looked about Caeda’s age, and the one on the left couldn’t have been any older than twelve or thirteen. Elice felt something painful in her chest— she’d heard Macedonian soldiers were young, but didn’t realize they could get that young.  
  
“Red Dragoon, is it,” Elice called. “I’d like to know your name, before you kill me.”  
  
“You will not,” is all the Red Dragoon said, her voice harsh through the mask, a little guttural like something had cut her voice box a long time ago. She lifted her axe. Her dragon screeched, rearing on its hind legs. Elice’s heart jumped into her throat. She staggered back, just in time for the axe to come zipping past close enough to tear her shirt. Elice’s head spun and she hadn’t even bled.  
  
Wind whipped Elice’s hair into her face. The pegasus knights had begun circling, and landed in perfect formation in a triangle, circling, cutting Elice off from support.  
  
“Your highness!” Jagen shouted. He tried to charge forward, but the middle-sized pegasus knight stopped him with her spear to his throat. He grit his teeth.  
  
Elice couldn’t see it, but the Red Dragoon raised an eyebrow. “Highness?” she repeated. “You’re royal?”  
  
Elice straightened, holding her dagger out as if it’d defend her against another strike from that axe. “I am,” she said. “I am Elice Olivier Lowell, of Altea.”  
  
“I thought the Altean royal family all perished,” the Red Dragoon said. A whisper went through the Macedonians and Aurelians alike.  
  
“I like to think I’m a bit tougher than that, Red Dragoon,” Elice replied. “And what of you?”  
  
The Red Dragoon remained silent.  
  
One of the pegasus knights spoke up. “Commander,” she said. “Shall I kill her for you?”  
  
“No, Palla,” the Red Dragoon said. “Whitewings! Take care of her men. Leave the insurgent princess to me.”  
  
The pegasus knights saluted, then spread out, lethal creatures acting in tandem with their mounts, all sharp lances and quick strikes. Even the youngest one looked like she had a laser focus, with her little face scrunched up, her little hands holding a short spear with leather-wrapped grips meant for hands her size, armor cut to fit a growing frame. Something about that didn’t sit right with Elice, but she couldn’t dwell on it.  
  
Elice jumped aside as the axe cut a gash in the earth where she was standing. The dragon screeched, planting its huge forelegs on either side of Elice and bearing down on her with its big, scaly, toothy head. Elice felt its hot dragon-breath from where she stood— except she’d stopped standing and hadn’t realized until her elbows hit the dirt. She held up her dagger like pointing a candle into a fog-filled night, as if a foot of metal would help anything.  
  
The Red Dragoon tugged on her mount’s reins and whistled a short command. The wyvern pulled back, though it still glared at Elice, and drool dripped from its teeth and splashed on the cold Aurelian soil.  
  
She swung her axe. Elice dodged it, barely. The pain registered a second later, when blood started to seep from where the blade had cut her shirt and hit her arm. It dripped down through the thin fabric, and ran off her hand. She shook it into the dirt, but more came to take its place. She clutched her dagger tighter anyway.  
  
Again, again, and Elice dodged, rolled in the grass. The cut on her arm stung, but it was nothing compared to what the Red Dragoon could bring her. Elice was fast, but she was running out of steam, and the axe cut into her back and opened another gash. And yet, she was still breathing— either Elice was faster than she thought, or the Red Dragoon didn’t really want to kill her.  
  
Elice stood on top of a rocky outcropping. Blood made the grip of her dagger slimy and glued her shirt to her back. Still, the Dragoon moved forward, unhurt, undaunted. The sun was setting. Her crimson armor and hair glowed in the colored light, her visage burning like an ember. Sunlight glanced off the tinted lenses of her mask. Elice could hear her breath through the grate in the front, heavy like a dragon’s. The dragon itself loomed behind its rider, growling like an earthquake. Elice was running out of options.  
  
She held out her hands. Faster than Elice would think a woman her size could, the Dragoon charged and snatched the hand where Elice held her dagger, grabbing the dagger out of her grasp. She closed her gauntleted hand and snapped the thin metal, letting it fall to the ground in broken shards. Elice tried not to let her terror show.  
  
“Why is Macedon fighting with Dolhr,” Elice began. “Macedon and Archanea have never had a quarrel before.”  
  
“Why my king fights,” the Red Dragoon replied. “Is not my place to know."  
  
The axe hit Elice square in her chest. Pain flared. Elice flew five feet, hit the ground, rolled ten more. Her mouth filled with copper. She saw ground, sky, ground, and then nothing, until she pulled her nose from the dirt and pushed herself to her back.  
  
Her head screamed. Blood ran from her hands. The stars were coming out. Elice could count them, and then she couldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3x: _Interesting Times:_ https://archiveofourown.org/works/14362050/chapters/33153966
> 
> yeah i know it's not clickable but idk how to do that with html so you're gonna have to copy+paste it yourself


	4. Act 1: The League- Chapter 4: Rainfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Why do you refuse to die, Insurgent Princess?” the Red Dragoon asked, skulking forwards with her axe at the ready. Rain bounced off the metal that glinted wickedly when lightning flashed. Elice stood with her dagger out, though she had a horrible moment where she remembered what the Red Dragoon had done to the last one._
> 
> _“That seems like a silly question,” Elice replied, carefully stepping to the side, keeping the same distance between herself and the Dragoon. “Nobody wants to die. Therefore, if something tries to make them die, they refuse. It makes perfect sense to me.”_
> 
> Elice's second encounter with Macedon goes quite a bit better than the first.

Over the eastern horizon, the sun rose— not that anyone could tell. Dark thunderheads blotted out the dawn, pouring harsh, cold rain and spitting lightning. The lightning lit up the sky with false daylight, followed split seconds after with earthshaking thunder. Liemann village had all its shutters shut tight as rain pounded angrily on the tin caps covering their chimneys, shielding the hearths below from the raindrops. Even so, errant drops blown in by the wind dropped down the shafts and hissed into steam when they met the fire, not enough one at a time to even hope to douse the fires. A selfish part of Elice wished she were in front of one of those fires, maybe with a book and some hot soup, but reality didn’t allow that.  
  
Caeda’s pegasus stamped at the muddy ground. Rainwater dripped off her feathers, mane plastered to her head. Caeda tugged at her hood and rubbed her mount’s neck. Horses were fairly waterproof, all things considered, and as war mounts, at least Jagen’s and Cain’s and Abel’s were trained not to spook or complain, but Elice figured none of them liked being out in the rain very much.  
  
That was saying nothing of the soldiers— everyone had the hoods of their cloaks pulled tight and wore double layers of socks, but the rain had a wet kind of chill that soaked through every cloak and jacket and sweater, so it didn’t even matter much. The little glass lanterns dangling from the front and back of the wagon did very little to cut through the gloom, and the little bit of light didn’t do much to lift anyone’s spirits, either.  
  
Elice held her hand over her face to keep the rain out of her eyes. “Can’t see a thing,” she said to Jagen, shouting over the noise of the rain and storm. “Are we ready to move?”  
  
Jagen saluted. Lightning cracked, tracing the blue metal of his armor in brilliant white, and a roll of thunder followed. “Everyone is accounted for,” he said. “Malledeus says he expects little resistance from the soldiers in the field camps, but we’d do well to still worry about the Dragoon. Even grounded, she’ll be a formidable foe.”  
  
Elice’s bruised ribs throbbed in agreement. “I’ll try not to engage her directly,” she promised. “So long as we stick to the plan, we'll be alright."  
  
Jagen nodded, and went to check with Draug to see that the wagon would hold for the charge. Cargo wagons weren’t made for that— it’d be a rough ride. Elice surveyed the rest of the army— which is technically what it was. The Aurelian soldiers stood at attention, waiting for the order to move. Cain and Abel flanked the wagon like they had before, with Draug driving and Jagen taking point. Unlike yesterday, though, Caeda brought up the rear, her pegasus’s wings folded in. It was dangerous in the mildest of midday rainstorms to send a flying mount into the sky, since the rain made the sky that much colder and the height made the wind that much harsher. With a thunderstorm raging as badly as it was then, it’d be asking to get struck out of the sky, especially wearing armor.  
  
Caeda broke formation, dismounting to trot up to Elice. She looked uncharacteristically pensive, and kept fidgeting with her cloak. Elice fought the urge to tighten the scarf around her neck and ask her if she’d remembered to wear extra stockings under her riding trousers. She tightened the belt holding her dagger sheath on her hip instead.  
  
“Are you doing alright, Caeda?” she asked. “I know you’re not used to ground combat.”  
  
“I’ll be fine,” Caeda promised, though she didn’t sound especially sure. “Um, Elice, how are you feeling? I saw those horrible bruises on your ribs and those cuts on your arm and your back, and Sister Lena and Father Wrys said you were concussed, which I don’t know what that means but it doesn’t sound very good, so.”  
  
“I feel much better,” Elice promised, which wasn’t a lie. “Takes more than that to put me under.”  
  
Caeda lowered her head. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. Thunder rolled. “It’s my fault you got hurt so badly. If my scouting was better, you wouldn’t be hurt.“  
  
“You didn’t know the Dragoon was there,” Elice promised. “It’s not your fault. They surprised us.”  
  
“I could’ve found out,” Caeda insisted. “If I’d flown closer, then—“  
  
“They would’ve shot you down, and we would’ve been going in blind,” Elice replied calmly. “As it is, we’re all here today, and we have a plan that accounts for the Dragoon being on the field. If we stick to it, we’ll all be fine.”  
  
Caeda didn’t seem convinced, but she nodded anyway. “If you say so,” she said. “Be careful, okay?”  
  
“I will,” Elice promised. “You be careful, too. Now, back in formation— we’re going to move.”  
  
Caeda saluted, and mounted her pegasus again. Elice jumped onto the front of the supply wagon, trying again and in vain to squint through the darkness at the road ahead, and saw absolutely nothing. The storm still raged, and darkness still shrouded the terrain. Elice pulled her new dagger, polished steel sharpened on both sides, from its sheath at her hip. She mouthed something like a prayer into the darkness, though she wasn’t entirely sure to whom she was praying. Perhaps it was more of a vow, and more to herself— _I will not fail again_.  
  
She held out her arm. Lightning flashed off her dagger. She shouted the order, and for a moment her own voice felt louder than any thunder.  
  
The night and storm hid them well, until the rising sun lightened the sky from black into gray. The warhorns on the fort sounded, soldiers pouring out of the fortress and onto the battlefield. The weather worked against them— the Macedonians, unused to fighting in such cold and wet conditions, struggled on the wet grass and soggy dirt, ranks breaking as soldiers lost their footing and tumbled into the mud, getting up only to face an enemy Aurelian soldier prepared to strike them down. Archers with rain in their eyes missed their marks, their arrows landing harmlessly in the wet ground. And through it all, Elice’s soldiers charged, barreling towards the hastily-forming blockade of shields.  
  
They stopped for the blockade, yes, but stopping the charge did not stop the battle. Elice’s forces clashed with the Macedonian knights, the clanging of steel against steel filling the air until deafening thunder drowned it out. Lightning flashed. Weapons clanged. The first knight fell with a guttural groan, blood from his mouth dripping down his chin and front. In the darkness his blood looked black, but the lighting lit it up that deep, unmistakable red.  
  
The second knight fell, and then the third, and blood dripped off of Elice’s dagger and she didn’t know how it got there. The blockade broke. _Get through_ , Jagen shouted, pushing the knights back with his shield. Thunder turned his words into silence. Rain washed the blood away, and yet more came; rivers of crimson flowing through channels in the cobblestones until they pooled in the lowest points or ran off into the grass. It stained Draug’s sabatons as he hoisted himself back into the driver’s seat, stained the wooden spokes of the wagon wheels when it lurched through the puddles, stained the hooves of Caeda’s pegasus as she rode past the fort, stained the road and the grass and the mud, stained armor, weapons, clothes, hands, minds.  
  
Jagen shouted her name. Elice ran.  
  
A dragon’s screech sent a bolt of fear through Elice’s mind. The supply wagon had vanished into the pass, and with it Jagen and Caeda, but the same massive dragon that’d struck fear into the hearts of the rest of the Macedonians stood between Elice and escape. Like the knights they were trained to be, Cain and Abel flanked her, weapons raised.  
  
The Red Dragoon dismounted. Lightning flashed off her mask and the brilliant scarlet armor that encased her, the rain darkening her red hair but unable to flatten it entirely. Her beast growled, but with the mask on and her face covered, Elice half-expected the rider to do the same. Her three pegasus knights flanked her, but remained mounted.  
  
“So, you survived,” the Dragoon said, as the rain drummed on her armor.  
  
“I’m good at that,” Elice replied. “It takes more than a fancy axe to kill me.”  
  
Thunder rumbled. “And will you try to face me once more?” the Dragoon asked. “Knowing that if I turned my blade, your life would be over?”  
  
“Your highness,” Abel whispered nervously. “I see an opening. If we run, we can catch up to the caravan.”  
  
Elice ignored him. “I’m not afraid,” she said. “If you _truly_ wanted to kill me, Red Dragoon, you would have done it yesterday.”  
  
The Red Dragoon remained silent. She swung her axe off her back, moving it like an extension of her own arm. Fast as the lightning itself, the pegasus knights rushed forwards, pushing Cain and Abel back down the road. The Dragoon was smart, separating them. Either she wanted it to be a genuinely fair fight, or she knew it never would be and wanted to taunt Elice with the idea while grinding her into a pulp— though the latter didn’t seem likely.  
  
“Why do you refuse to die, Insurgent Princess?” the Red Dragoon asked, skulking forwards with her axe at the ready. Rain bounced off the metal that glinted wickedly when lightning flashed. Elice stood with her dagger out, though she had a horrible moment where she remembered what the Red Dragoon had done to the last one.  
  
“That seems like a silly question,” Elice replied, carefully stepping to the side, keeping the same distance between herself and the Dragoon. “Nobody _wants_ to die. Therefore, if something tries to make them die, they refuse. It makes perfect sense to me.”  
  
The Red Dragoon swung her axe out. “Enough talk,” she said. “Face me, Insurgent Princess!”  
  
Faster than a creature of her size should’ve been able to move, the Red Dragoon lunged forward, jabbing the pommel of her axe into Elice’s breastbone hard enough to prove her point— hard enough that Elice knew that any harder would’ve broken it. As it was, she cried out in blinding pain, falling to her knees on the wet grass. Cold rainwater soaked through her trousers. Her bruises ached. She clenched her jaw against it.  
  
“Your highness!” Abel shouted. His horse whinnied. He made to ride towards Elice, but one of the pegasus knights jumped in front of his path, hitting his helmet with her lance hard enough to dent it. Abel grunted in pain, and managed to stay on his horse, but only barely. Blood ran from his nose. He wiped it with his leather glove, then grimaced when he saw the mess it made.  
  
The Dragoon’s armor clanked, lightning striking at the exact moment she brought her axe down. Had Elice not jumped aside, it would’ve meant her death. As it was, it cut a trench in the ground with little resistance. Rainwater washed the dirt off the blade in little brown tracks. Elice’s hands trembled around her dagger.  
  
The sky was slowly getting lighter, but the rain poured on with no end in sight. It glued Elice’s hair to her skin, fell off her eyelashes when she tried to clear it from her vision. The Red Dragoon advanced, one agonizingly slow step at a time, a juggernaut in black and red and gold. Rain dripped off the golden fang details on her mask, and in the back of Elice’s mind, she could hear it growling, low and dangerous— the Dragoon was an apex predator, and Elice was her prey.  
  
Thunder rolled. The dragon— the _real_ dragon— roared. Elice looked at the tinted panes of the Red Dragoon’s mask and saw nothing but a dim reflection of the fort and the mountains and the dark, churning storm.  
  
The axe came down. Elice dodged. And again, and again, the lethal killing edge closer to a hit every time. Her lungs ached. She couldn’t tell if the roaring in her ears was the rain or the dragon or her own blood rushing through her veins. Her dagger lay somewhere too far away for her to reach.  
  
The ground listed beneath her feet. The Red Dragoon came closer like a lion stalking her prey. Her back was to the road. The dragon bellowed, blocking the rest of Elice’s soldiers from coming to her aid. The pegasus knights intercepted every attempt Cain and Abel made to ride to help. Her mind raced despite pain turning her vision red, and yet every plan she could think of wouldn’t work. She was unarmed, unarmored, and stood little chance against the unstoppable might of the Red Dragoon.  
  
She moved to step back. Her foot bumped against a rock. Without thinking, she picked it up. It was a chunk of broken granite brick about the size of her fist, with the dense weight she’d expect a brick to have. A brick, she realized, was better than nothing.  
  
Elice pulled a breath of air into her lungs. And then she ran, drawing strength from every ounce of stupid bravery she had, towards the Red Dragoon. Time slowed.  
  
The Dragoon shifted her stance. She pulled her axe back, ready to cleave Elice in two in one deadly, final swing. Elice jumped, slamming the broken edge of the brick as hard as she could into the Red Dragoon’s unprotected skull. Thunder crashed, covering any shout of pain the Dragoon may have made. Her stance broke, as did her hold on her axe. She staggered, clutching at the wound. The rock, sticky and dark with Macedonian blood, fell with a harmless thud. Elice hit the ground and tasted dirt and then iron with a tang that filled her mouth. She coughed, saw crimson splatter down her chin and onto her shirt— it ran like wine but thicker, stickier, and yet the color when it spilled stained the threads of Elice’s memory like her bedsheets and her old pink dress.  
  
But to the Dragoon, a wound like that was negligible. She hefted her axe again, ignoring the blood that ran through her hair, behind her ear, down her neck. Elice tried to move, her breath whistling through her bloody lips and stopped-up nose, and found that she had hit her limit. This was where she met her end, it seemed. Elice hoped Naga would be alright with all those times she’d daydreamed through weekly devotions.  
  
A sharp cry of pain saved her— Cain had gotten a solid hit on the smallest of the pegasus knights. Her mount reared, and she tumbled to the ground, landing hard on the brick road. He paid for it with a lance blade in his sword arm from one of the others, but the Dragoon had already noticed. For a moment, Elice thought she was going to enact bloody vengeance on the knight that’d struck down her soldier, but she didn’t do that. She dropped her axe and whistled, a sharp command that made the remaining pegasus knights still, jumping to attention.  
  
The Dragoon whistled again. The smallest pegasus knight pulled herself to her feet and picked up her helmet where it lay in the road, swinging herself back into the saddle. Elice realized with a start that that soldier really _was_ a child— thirteen at most, with soft baby cheeks and tears in her eyes, biting hard on her lip while the rain glued her short pink hair to her head. The pegasus knights retreated, clearing the road and returning to the dragon, whose tail curled around them protectively.  
  
The Dragoon looked back to Elice, putting her axe back into its sheath. “I tire of this game of cat and mouse,” she said, voice strong and deep and steady despite the blood still running from her head. “You will keep your life another day, Insurgent Princess. The next time we meet, I will not be so merciful.”  
  
She clicked her tongue. The dragon snapped warningly at Cain and Abel, and bounded to its riders side. The pegasus knights dropped into formation and followed, leaving the road clear and flanking their commander once more. Elice stared. The Red Dragoon jerked her head towards the road. Although Elice wanted nothing more than to lie in the mud and wait for death, she knew an act of mercy when she saw it. She dragged herself to her feet, pushing the Dragoon and her knights out of her mind in favor of making it to her knights on the road.  
  
The Red Dragoon’s eyes tracked Elice through the rain-splattered visor of her mask, and she watched as one of her knights helped her onto his horse and rode for safety further down the road. And then they were gone, vanished amid the trees.  
  
The rain had finally slowed, the thunder easing into a distant rumble. Horns in the fort blew as the Empire soldiers pushed back the Aurelians. The General wouldn’t be pleased that she allowed the insurgents to escape, but the Dragoon had known that the moment she received her assignment. Whatever punishment she may be dealt paled in comparison to the possibility of losing her squad.  
  
Her dragon growled unhappily at the sky, and shifted a massive wing so it covered her rider and the pegasi. The knights had dismounted to fuss over the youngest, who stubbornly insisted that she’d be fine even if she couldn’t hope to hide the way her chin trembled. But the damage didn’t seem to be life-threatening, and the tension in Red Dragoon’s shoulders eased a touch when her senior Whitewing knight stood back up.  
  
“No serious damage,” she said. “Just knocked the wind out of her. Est is fine. Spooked, but fine.”  
  
“Good,” the Dragoon nodded. “Still— Palla, Catria, the two of you should take her to the infirmary in the fort once we return.”  
  
“Of course, Commander Drakon,” Palla nodded. “And you?”  
  
Commander Drakon reached up and prodded experimentally at the wound on her head. The bleeding had stopped (head wounds always bled more than they need to), but she felt a hard lump swelling up at the point of impact, the clotted blood made slimy and unpleasant by lingering rainwater that still dripped from her hair.  
  
“I’ll live,” she decided. “You needn’t worry.”  
  
Palla tsked, obviously unconvinced. She reached up and undid the buckles holding the mask in place, setting the heavy thing on the ground so she could check for herself. Commander Drakon lowered her head, and blood ran down her face, thinning out with the rainwater and dripping down her neck, leaving little pinkish-red stains on her collar. Palla stood on her toes for a better look. Commander Drakon felt her calloused fingertips pushing through her soaked hair, probing at the little wound.  
  
“Looks like it hurts,” Palla appraised, tracing the trail of blood down her chin. “You’re coming to the infirmary, too.”  
  
“Your wish is my command,” Commander Drakon ceded. “And I suppose dying of infection of a minor head wound would upset my sister, and we simply can’t have that.”  
  
“What about the General?” Catria spoke up. “He’ll tell Macedon we let the rebels escape. The king—“  
  
“Can bite me!” Est interrupted, to Catria’s displeasure. “The rebels were tough. He’s underestimating them.”  
  
“Their leader is certainly stubborn, I’ll give them that,” Palla admitted. “Commander?”  
  
Commander Drakon hummed. “Catria,” she began. “How fast can you fly?”


	5. Act 1: The League- Chapter 5: The Wolfguard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prince Hardin bowed his head. “Your highness,” he said._
> 
>  
> 
> _“Your highness,” Elice replied, doing the same._
> 
>  
> 
> Elice prepares to add her forces to Hardin's in order to break a siege.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the lack of carpenter update, been dealing with some irl personal things. will post it 6/25. thank yall for your understanding! in the meantime, have this.

Distance-wise, the city of Dorran was about a three-day ride from Liemann village— assuming they didn’t get lost, of course, and that there were no nasty surprises like bandits or wild animals waiting to ambush travelers. But Dorran was nestled in the Aurelian highlands, surrounded by the mountains that rose up along the southern end of a long, choppy gulf. Travel through them meant steep, rocky paths winding through narrow passes and carved into ledges with more mountain on one side and empty air on the other. True, they weren’t the highest mountains, nor the most dangerous roads, but knowing that didn’t somehow change the fact that a fall off the side would probably kill somebody. Elice was just glad she wasn’t afraid of heights.  
  
The narrow mountain road, despite being a well-traveled traders’ road, meant that a three-day ride on flat ground became a five-day ride, slowed further by occasional skirmishes with bandits and raiders that lessened the closer they got to the city, and had stopped entirely by the time they’d made camp about a day from the city limits. There’d been no sign of Dolhr, but no sign of any other travelers, either, leaving the mountain roads eerily quiet. A siege would do that, Elice supposed, but it was still strange going so far and not seeing anyone else.  
  
They made camp when the sun sank behind the mountains on the western side, coating everything it touched in a brilliant gold and casting huge, dark shadows where it didn’t. The weather turned cold as the sun set, but the sky was clear, so they left the tents in the supply cart and rolled out the bedrolls under the orange sky. Dinner was simple, as it’d been for the past four nights— soup made from dried meat, barley, and various tubers, all cooked over the campfire until it turned a dusty gray-brown. Elice was quite tired of it by that point, but ate without complaint, thinking wistfully of fish pies and egg sandwiches and the very concept of seasoning.  
  
By the time dinner was done and the wooden dishes were washed and put back in the crate where they belonged, the sky had turned deep blue and the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, leaving the campsite in darkness. The camp was always fairly quiet after dinner, as people went to bed, but Elice didn’t feel very tired, so she sat down by the fire and watched Abel teach Caeda’s other three bodyguards how to play cards, expand the game to include Draug, Cain, and Gordin, and then Gordin very tidily and without any apparent effort win all of Barst’s money and the literal shirt off his back.  
  
“I don’t think I much like this game,” he decided. “Could I have my shirt back?”  
  
Gordin shuffled his cards. He’d draped Barst’s thick flannel shirt over his shoulder like how a hunter wore a pelt. “Sure, of course. If you win it off me,” he said with a wicked grin.  
  
“Don’t try, he’ll take your trousers, too,” Draug, who had cut his losses three hands ago, spoke up. “He may look innocent, but Gordin’s the worst kind of player.”  
  
Cord frowned. “A cheater?”  
  
“No,” Draug answered, looking venomously across the circle at Gordin. “A _winner_.”  
  
Abel snorted into his waterskin and the bodyguard trio joined in the laugh at Draug’s expense. Gordin grinned cheekily, obviously taking Draug’s only half-barbed insult as a point of pride.  
  
“Aw, Draug, don’t be like that,” Gordin said. “Here, I’m not without mercy. Just for you, I’ll go easy on you for another hand, if it makes you happy.”  
  
Draug considered this. “You mean it?”  
  
“Course he doesn’t, mule-head,” Abel chided, cuffing Draug’s shoulder. “He’s _goading_ you. Next thing you know, he’ll have _your_ shirt.”  
  
And on it went, though Elice stopped listening after a while to watch the embers in the campfire, and the sparks rising up to the night sky, inky black and speckled with stars. The moon and stars were the same in Talys as they were in Altea, and Elice was glad to know that they were the same in Aurelis, too. Of course, the sky turned as the seasons changed, showing different constellations with different names and stories, but they were the same ones in every country. Elice could name a few— the scorpion, the harp, the swan. Her father had been fond of the stars. Fitting that he should lie among them now.  
  
The thought made her chest ache, sore like a mis-healed wound. She pushed down the lump in her throat, telling herself that breaking down in front of her army was poor form for a queen.  
  
She didn’t have much time to ponder this, though. Jagen cleared his throat and Elice sat up, grateful for a distraction from her own thoughts and memories of her father. Jagen didn’t look too happy about his after-dinner relaxing time with Malledeus being cut short, but duty called.  
  
“You’ve visitors, your highness,” Jagen said. “Shall I call them into your chamber?”  
  
Elice got to her feet. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary, ser Jagen,” she said, playing along. “Who’s visiting?”  
  
Jagen cleared his throat. “Might I present Prince Hardin Vontague, of Aurelis,” he said, making the rest of the camp look up, as he gestured to a man Elice had never seen before. He looked like an older man, at least to Elice, though maybe that was the bags under his eyes and the stress lines in his brow making him look older than he was. He had the battle-weary stance of a soldier in the midst of a long battle, and yet hadn’t lost any of the regal grace with which princes tended to carry themselves. Instead of armor, he wore a dark blue cloak and turban fastened with little bronze and black pins too small for Elice to see clearly in the low light of the campfire, but if she had to guess, she’d say they were stamped with the Aurelian bear. Elice was a little curious as to why he didn’t wear armor, but at least the cloak looked very warm.  
  
Prince Hardin had four men flanking him, all in dark blue armor trimmed in black, and damned near impossible to see in the darkness. The one immediately to his right had stern, sharp features, and one visible eye that glinted in the darkness and looked like it saw more then it let on. The one to his left looked just as stern but less sharp and more steadfast, built in softer shapes and more muted green colors to contrast the purple of the soldier on Hardin’s right. Behind them were two younger men, one with a stiffly-gelled pompadour type thing on his head in a bright shade of red who looked about two steps away from puffing up like a porcupine and stabbing everything in reach, and the other with soft, boyish cheeks and the same kind of violet hair that looked like someone had combed it. They were fully armed— two held bows and two held spears, prepared in the event of an attack, but they didn’t look like they were planning to attack. At least, Elice didn’t think so.  
  
Prince Hardin bowed his head. “Your highness,” he said.  
  
“Your highness,” Elice replied, doing the same.  
  
Prince Hardin chuckled. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Princess Elice,” he said.  
  
That was news to Elice. “We’ve met before?”  
  
“You were quite young,” Hardin admitted. “Three or four, I think. I said hello and you kicked me in the ankle. It bruised.”  
  
Elice didn’t remember that. “You seem to have recovered remarkably well,” she said, then winced inwardly at how lame that was. “I only wish our second meeting was under better circumstances.” That was better.  
  
Hardin nodded agreement. “It’s a relief your army’s here, though,” he said. “I’m not certain how much longer Dorran will last. May we discuss this in your camp?”  
  
Elice nodded, and led Hardin and his soldiers over to the fire. She was embarrassingly aware of how small her army was— she had the knights playing cards or dozing on bedrolls, Father Wrys snoring in the wagon and Sister Lena taking point as the active healer (though since the army was so small all that meant was that she was rolling bandages), and Caeda, already asleep with her head on Ogma’s leg. Sister Lena’s friend the thief sat cross-legged on top of the wagon like a very large guard bird. The newest recruit, a swordsman Caeda had found, lurked on the camp’s edges, polishing a lethally-sharp blade and glaring at anyone who came close.  
  
Hardin sat, a little awkwardly, once Elice led him to sit next to the fire. “Word from Liemann village said your army took down the Red Dragoon,” he said. “What are your numbers?”  
  
“Fourteen combatants, now, counting myself,” Elice replied. “But we’ve had an addition since then, so it was thirteen at that point. Yours?”  
  
“I have four with me and four watching camp,” Hardin replied. “Impressive, though. Especially with your amount of non-combatants.”  
  
Elice quirked an eyebrow. “You’re not wondering where the rest of my army is? Everyone I’ve spoken to thus far seems stunned at what I’ve managed.”  
  
If Elice weren’t mistaken, she saw Hardin’s ego itself puff up a bit. “Oh, well, a tactician can accomplish much with a small force of skilled soldiers,” he said. “My operations within Aurelis aren’t so grand as taking out the Red Dragoon, but I’ve done quite a bit with my Wolfguard. We’re more a strike team than an army, of course, but we hit hard, and then vanish.” He struck his palm with his fist to prove his point. “We’re fast and we’re good, if I do say so myself.” Elice caught a grin at the edge of his mouth, a grin of pride barely suppressed in the interest of politeness.  
  
Elice sat cross-legged, resting her elbow on one knee and her chin on that hand. “We could certainly benefit, combining our forces,” she said. “Who’s besieging Dolhr? Macedonians, like in Liemann?”  
  
“Just so,” Hardin confirmed. “Seems like the Empire doesn’t want to dirty their hands this far out.” He scoffed. “They must be underestimating us. The Macedonians are used to their hot summers and dry air. Aurelis hampers them with its humidity, and the nights are too cold for them. It’s almost too easy.”  
  
“That’s how we managed to get past the Red Dragoon,” Elice agreed. “We waited until it rained. She was slower, and her pegasus knights were grounded.” Elice conveniently did not mention that she’d still gotten herself rather thoroughly wrecked. He didn’t need to know that.  
  
“Clever,” Hardin commented. “My men and I have been keeping track of their supply lines. We cause avalanches and distractions— take what we can, destroy the rest, resulting in unrest and infighting.”  
  
“What do you do with what you take?” Elice asked.  
  
“Smuggle it back into the city,” Hardin said. “They can’t starve us out if we’re not starving.”  
  
“A good strategy for surviving a siege,” Malledeus commented. Malledeus did not sit down, knowing that if he did, his knees would never let him get up again. “How are you getting in and out?”  
  
Hardin turned back to one of his men— the pointy one— and nodded. The pointy purple man handed him a map, which Hardin unfolded and spread out between himself and Elice. It looked to be a map of the hills around Dorran— the city itself was built upon an island in the center of a mountain lake, but the surrounding hills and forests had paths drawn through them, most of the larger entrances and exits marked out in dark ink. They had the siege marked out in red, watchtowers and blockades surrounding the lake and blocking the roads. In dark blue, they had small, seemingly random spots circled, most of those crossed out in red as well, but a few, further from the city, left alone. Crossing the map in defiance of the rest of the features, however, were blue lines connecting the circles, some leading out and some leading under the lake and into the city.  
  
Hardin pointed to the blue lines. “Mining tunnels,” he said proudly. “The Dolhrians collapsed a lot of the tunnel entrances, but they didn’t notice a few, and luckily for us, the tunnels under the lake stayed open. We take their food and supply shipments and distribute them among the people in the city.”  
  
“So you’re effectively starving _them_ ,” Elice realized, taking the map and looking it over. “That’s smart.”  
  
“It’s worked well thus far,” Hardin said. “But it’s been a few months, and this isn’t a permanent solution. We need to get the Empire out of Aurelis and free the city, especially if we’re going to do anything to aid Princess Nyna. What say you, Princess Elice?” He offered his hand.  
  
Elice took it. “I’m in,” she said. “Jagen?”  
  
Jagen nodded to Elice. “Of course, your Highness,” he said. “And I would advise you listen carefully to what Malledeus has to say. The situation is a little weightier than what you’ve faced before.”  
  
“And you have an experienced tactician, to boot,” Hardin remarked, grinning under his mustache. “And a flier? Two healers? Axemen? It’s almost a real army. The Empire won’t know what hit it.” Elice wondered if that meant he’d lasted thus far without a single healer or flier, and suddenly his pride in his men’s accomplishments made much more sense.  
  
“Is your camp far from here?” Elice asked, instead of saying that. “We should meet with your tactician. Two heads are better than one, and all.”  
  
“It’s not far, but we’ll have to be quiet, or we risk the Empire finding one of the few mineshaft entrances they hadn’t collapsed,” Hardin replied. “But I do agree— my daughter is our tactician, and she’ll be thrilled to meet yours.” Elice tried to picture Hardin’s daughter. Her mind only succeeded in putting Hardin’s head on a teenage girl’s body, turban and mustache included. Maybe Elice just wasn’t that creative.  
  
Hardin was right— it wasn’t far, but they did have to be quiet. They led Elice’s army down another overgrown path through the tree-covered hills and cliffs. This one was darker, more winding than the last, and Hardin’s two cavaliers brought up the rear, putting down unbroken branches and sticks to cover their trail. Elice wouldn’t have noticed the mine entrance if Hardin hadn’t pointed it out, and lit the pitch on his torch to cut through the underground gloom.  
  
The mine was even darker. The path they took was barely wide enough for the cart to fit, and low enough that they had to take down the cover to keep it from banging against the wooden ceiling supports. Two sets of narrow iron rails set on wooden slats ran into the darkness. For minecarts, Hardin explained— the mining system works with better efficiency if nobody has to haul wheelbarrows up to the surface. He and his men use them to transport supplies into the city without risking horses or sacrificing valuable time. It was only sensible.  
  
The first depot was an alcove dug into the side of the tunnel with a wooden front— a strikingly ordinary front, with a door and a window and a wall-mounted lantern, like it’d been ripped off the front of a house and put in front of a man-made cave. It had a point switch leading to a minecart junction, with a few empty minecarts. Various tools cluttered the area— lanterns, pickaxes, chisels, ropes.  
  
Hardin knocked twice on the door. “We’re back,” he said. “I’ve brought Princess Elice and her squad.”  
  
Someone behind the wall pushed the window shutters open. A tall, strong woman with violet curls and one eye covered in cloth wrapping saluted to Hardin. “Highness,” she said. Then she nodded politely to Elice. Elice forgot how to breathe.  
  
“Everything quiet here, Malice?” Hardin asked.  
  
“All’s well,” Malice agreed. “Princess Elice, is it? Welcome to Aurelis.”  
  
Elice had to remember how to speak. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m afraid we haven’t had the time to go sightseeing yet, but I’m sure the place is lovely.”  
  
“It’ll be lovelier once we get the Doles off our doorstep,” Malice replied. “Damned imperialists.” She nodded to Hardin. Hardin nodded back. Malice closed the shutters and disappeared behind the wall. Elice heard the clicking of a few locks, then Malice pushed the door open. She bobbed her head, holding the door to let them all in.  
  
“Warning you now,” Malice said. “There may not be enough chairs for all of you. You younger folk may have to sit on the floor.” (Elice knew exactly where she wanted to sit, but shoved that budding desire so far back into the figurative closet it was a wonder she didn’t get trapped back in there herself.)  
  
But everyone crammed into the hideout just fine. One of Hardin’s men found hay and water for the mounts, another one produced a cask of Aurelian mulled cider and several loaves of bread, and were it not for the map weighted to the table and the pile of pebbles marking siege points, it’d almost be a party. But there was a map there and they were surrounded by weaponry and armor crates, so it obviously was not a party.  
  
Hardin’s tactician was one of his two daughters, both of whom were about Caeda’s age, but that was where the similarities ended. One sat against the back wall, sharpening her arrowheads and sneering at whoever catches her eye while still looking like she’s paying attention. The other was slight and small and had deep scars running across every visible bit of skin— which was to say, just her face, and everyone had to be very quiet because she couldn’t make her voice go above a quiet conversational tone for more than a few words. But sometimes one just had to make do. Hardin called her Katarina, and from what Elice could tell, she and her sister were probably adopted, since there was no mustache or turban in sight on either of them.  
  
“The Empire hasn’t noticed us moving into the tunnels yet,” Katarina said, tapping her fingers against the map. “But Clarisse says they’ve been growing suspicious, and they’ve been getting craftier trying to catch us blocking their supply shipments. Dolhr has Macedon’s air power, which means the surface routes are risky, so we have to stick to the tunnels as much as possible.”  
  
“How do we break their hold?” Elice asked. “There’s only the one bridge into the city, isn’t there?”  
  
“Our soldiers have the city’s water entrances blocked, and the mounted ballista on the perimeter walls prevent the Dolhrians from gaining any ground into the city,” Hardin added. “Nobody’s gained an inch since the siege started.”  
  
“So what’s your plan?” Elice asked.  
  
“There seem to be choke points here,” Malledeus pointed out, pointing to points around the blockade into the city. “Though I suppose the watchtowers on the other bank will be a problem…”  
  
“They’re so far away, though, if we stay hidden, they won’t notice us,” Elice replied. “Will they?”  
  
“On a clear day, yes,” Katarina said. “The plan that we’ve been thinking of is that we’ll hit the choke points at the main blockade, here, here, here, and here.” She pointed in turn to each of the four main points on the battlements. “Now that we have a bigger force, we can hit harder.”  
  
“So if we just hit hard enough, it’ll work?” Caeda asked.  
  
“Yes,” Katarina nodded. “I-in theory, anyway. Our numbers are so few, we can’t exactly try it out ourselves, and this is kind of a one-time thing…”  
  
Caeda shrugged. “Well, far be it from me to say no when a pretty girl asks me to do something. Simple plan, though, right?”  
  
“We don’t have the time or manpower for something more complex,” Hardin admitted. “We break the choke points, we weaken their hold. I’ll blow the signaling horn when we’ve freed all four to let the Aurelian army know that they can come back us up.”  
  
Malledeus frowned. “We could still use something… else,” he said. “A bluff. Word that we don’t have an army likely hasn’t reached the Empire yet.”  
  
“So, how do we pretend to have an army?” Elice asked. “That seems like a difficult thing to bluff.”  
  
Malledeus got a glimmer in his eyes. He rubbed his chin, his white mustache almost twitching in excitement. “Prince Hardin,” he asked. “What do you know about elk?”


	6. Act 1: The League- Chapter 6: Dorran Under Siege

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“We’ll face this fight together,” Hardin repeated, allowing no room for argument or self-doubt. “Come, Princess Elice! Aurelis is counting on us!”_
> 
> With Hardin and the Wolfguard as allies, Elice leads the battle to free Aurelis' capital city from the looming threat of invasion.

Elice’s eyes felt gummy. She rubbed them with the back of her gloved hand, to no avail. She’d been up since the middle of the night, when the group finished strategizing and sent Julian into the tunnels to take word of the assault to Princess Nyna and the Aurelian generals. Under the cover of night and fog, they’d split into strike teams to take out the five watchtowers on the lakeshores. Elice herself had gone with Jagen, Hardin, and Ogma to the northeast tower. The plan had gone off without a hitch— they took out the night watchmen, soaked the signal braziers, and sabotaged the ballistae, all without being noticed. With similar successes from the other four watchtowers, Hardin was practically _skipping_ around the camp finalizing the details for the siege assault, professionality alone keeping his giddiness in check.  
  
Malledeus had decided that they should partner up— mounted units with non-mounted, where they could— so Elice was joining Jagen, which suited both of them just fine. Counting Elice and Jagen, they had ten pairs going into combat. Malledeus, who couldn’t fight, would stay at camp with Father Wrys. Father Wrys couldn’t fight, and though Sister Lena couldn’t, either, Sister Lena was much younger and could do the running around needed to be a field medic, while Father Wrys couldn’t. Having a healer with them in the field was a necessity, Hardin agreed, especially since they couldn't risk failiure.  
  
In addition to the ten pairs were Caeda and Katarina. Katarina had novice-level skill with lots of different types of weapons, but wasn’t able to fight with the rest of them, and Malledeus didn’t want to risk Caeda going into the fray in an important battle with her lack of experience, so they were in charge of the elk.  
  
At this point, Elice just wanted to get this over with. If Malledeus said there would be elk and this is what they would do, there would be elk and by all the gods, that was how it'd happen. Sure. Whatever.  
  
The camp felt tense, though Hardin seemed to be trying to keep it light with how confident he was. He kept saying, especially to his men, that if they could manage what they had done before with six people, then they were bound to get _something_ done with a whole army. Elice wished she could share his optimism— she mostly felt like her breakfast had come back to life with a vengeance and was trying to crawl back out of her stomach.  
  
“Princess Elice,” Ogma called, waving her over from the line of cavaliers tending to horses that pawed anxiously on the edges of the camp, as if tasting the anticipation in the air. The pairs had all lined up, save for Caeda and Katarina, waiting for the order to move.  
  
Elice nodded to him. “Ready for the siege, Ogma?”  
  
“As I’ll ever be, your highness,” Ogma replied. “And yourself?”  
  
“As I’ll ever be,” Elice replied. She grimaced, shading her eyes with her hand as she squinted towards the castle nestled in the middle of the mountain lake. It was a clear shot to the four siege points, which meant that there’d be no going back once they had advanced. They might’ve been attacking in the early morning, but the low light wouldn’t last forever. Wind blew on the back of her neck, feeling strangely bare since Elice had taken the time to put her hair in a braid before the initial assault on the watchtowers. In Altea, superstition had it that wind at one’s back was a sign of good fortune in the day to come. Elice, who had never been one for superstition, was pretty sure it was just a sign of which direction she was facing. But remembering it gave her a welcome reminder of home, however small, and however bitter it felt now that Elice's memories of home were of terrified adrenaline and improvised weaponry and blood on the floor and the sick feeling of betrayal, and wanting to ask _why_ but not being granted the right.  
  
“Ah, the two of you have so little faith in your own ability,” Hardin said, seeming downright cheerful as he polished the blade of his sword and slid it back into its sheath. “Think of all you’ve done so far! Why, Princess Elice, Ogma was just telling me about when you blew up a whole ship of pirates with a homemade bottle bomb— and, ser Ogma, you _must_ promise me to fill me in about some of those other battle feats you yourself have accomplished.” Had Elice been looking closer, she’d have seen Ogma flush and grin a little.  
  
Elice’s ears turned pink. “I wouldn’t say it was that impressive,” she said. “I mean, it was what I had. And it _definitely_ wasn't a whole ship.”  
  
“And why should I discount that as an accomplishment?” Hardin replied. “If that was what you managed on your own, thinking on your feet, then just imagine what you’ll be able to do with an army!” Two dozen people was not exactly an army, but Elice didn’t mention that. She could kind of see his point, but that didn’t change the malaise stirring in her stomach.  
  
“Which reminds me,” Hardin remembered. He reached into his bag and pulled out a thin glass vial about the size of Elice’s thumb. Greenish-blue liquid shimmering with a silvery luster swirled in it, thick and viscous. The vial was hot to the touch— so hot Elice almost dropped it. “A gift for you, your highness.”  
  
Elice gingerly took the vial, holding it by the cork so she wouldn’t burn her hands. “Thank you, Prince Hardin,” she said politely. “Ah… what is it?”  
  
“They call it Naga’s Breath,” Hardin told her. “Magical, sticky fire that won’t go out when doused. Used by navies, mostly, but it works for surface warfare, too. They make it up in Khaedin— we raided a shipment of it a while back and took what we could use.”  
  
“How do I use it?” Elice asked. “Do I just…”  
  
“You throw it, like a grenade,” Hardin explained, handing her a little canvas sack. “There’s five in there. A little goes a long way, so be careful— only use it if you’re in a real bind.”  
  
“Seems useful to have to arm trebuchets or catapults with,” Ogma commented. “Bet that’d make short work of a siege line.”  
  
Hardin smiled wryly. “Yes, if we had trebuchets or catapults,” he replied. “We have to make do.”  
  
“I’ll try not to blow myself up,” Elice promised. “I imagine that wouldn’t make a great impression on Princess Nyna.”  
  
Ogma gave her a Look. “Which is the priority, of course, rather than your actual human life.”  
  
“Whatever gets you through the battle, princess,” Hardin decided. He scanned the assembled army. “I think everyone’s ready. I’ll give the order.”  
  
“Good luck out there, both of you,” Elice said, and Ogma bowed his head politely in reply. “And thanks for the fire, Prince Hardin. I’ll put it to good use.”  
  
Hardin beamed. “Good luck to you, too, Princess Elice,” he said. “Just wait— we’ll finish this siege, and then we’ll have lunch with Princess Nyna. And, ser Ogma—”  
  
Ogma chuckled, which was the most emotion Elice had seen him show for as long as she’d known him (which, admittedly, wasn’t long). “Don’t worry, your Highness,” he said. “You’ll hear as much of my adventures as you care to when this is all over.”  
  
“See to it that you live,” Hardin said.  
  
“With one as capable as _you_ by my side, I wouldn’t dare die,” Ogma replied. Were they flirting? Elice was no expert, but that was kind of how it seemed to her. She decided she wouldn’t question it— she wasn’t Ogma’s keeper or even his vassal. He could flirt with whoever he wanted.  
  
Elice could only smile at Hardin’s enthusiasm. She waved to both of them and then wove through the ranks to join Jagen, already seated on his warhorse, Salem— a big, black and white stallion with a mile-long pedigree and the same stern demeanor as his rider. She pulled herself into the saddle behind him. It was far from comfortable, but it was just for the ride.  
  
“Please take care not to lose your dagger this time around, your highness,” Jagen said pointedly.  
  
“Well, the Red Dragoon isn’t here to crush it,” Elice replied. “I think I’ll have an easier time keeping it.”  
  
“We can still attach a strap to the hilt,” Jagen suggested wryly. “It’s not too late.”  
  
Elice tried to picture charging into battle with her knife on a strap around her wrist, like how mittens for small children were made connected by a string. It’d probably go about as well as her first fight with the Red Dragoon— except worse, because she’d get laughed at before getting knocked across the battlefield like a golf ball.  
  
Elice’s ears turned red. “I’ll take my chances.”  
  
Hardin blew his whistle. Jagen spurred his horse into action and with a start, they were off, charging towards the siege line. In the corner of Elice’s vision, Caeda and Katarina took off into the blue sky, heading over the Aurelian wilderness. Elice hoped they’d be alright— but all she could do was hope.  
  
They approached from the south, and as such were spotted first _from_ the south. Alarm bells clanged through the early-morning mist settled on the hills. They hadn’t lit the signal braziers, but even when they did, the sabotaged ballistae on the lakeside forts meant help wouldn’t come easily.  
  
“Get ready for a fight,” Hardin called to her, readying his lance. Riding behind him, Ogma unsheathed his sword. Elice nodded grimly. Sniper arrows started to fly from the choke point. Their party split— five pairs to the front and five pairs around the back for a hard and fast assault. War horns blared. Jagen’s horse charged towards the soldiers pouring out of the siege point. His lance sliced through them like butter.  
  
The plan was going beautifully. The first siege point went down easily. The second was a little more resistant, from the enemy Macedonians rushing to meet them, but doable, and the third, likewise, went the same. Blood flowed dark red across the blockade, staining the wood and dripping off the stone and clumping in the dirt. The mid-morning sunshine gleamed off of discarded weapons and black armor on dead bodies that would lie there until the battle was done. It seemed a grisly end, for all Elice had heard talk of how soldiers were always called heroes— it didn’t really seem very heroic to have died terror-stricken and pants-shat at the end of a lance or sword, and it didn’t seem very dignified to have your body left to rot and then burn, burn, up into anonymous ashes that’d coat enemy soil. Elice hadn’t been told of this part of battle, and it was a small wonder why. Being born royalty meant nobody wanted to be the one to tell you about the ugly truths.  
  
Blood stained Elice’s dagger, her hands, her boots. Her shirt was red flannel; Jagen’s, if she wasn’t mistaken, borrowed from his things when her old linen shirt got torn up. She’s heard it said to wear red so enemies won’t see you bleed, but the blood on Elice’s shirt was darker, and dried sticky and brown on the red fabric, hot as it seeped through the fabric and made the shirt adhere itself to her skin.  
  
_Focus, Lowell_ , she ordered herself. She wasn’t going to get sucked into her memories. (But she felt them try to push to the forefront, flickering back and fourth between spilling the stolen wine bottle and how blood ran into the channels made by the grout between the stones of the floor, a deep, dark red staining her bedsheets and then dripping off her dress— Elice, sixteen and immature and trying to squish and stretch pieces of herself to fit into an expectation, and the wine bottle coming open and blood coming out instead, hers, her mother’s, her brother’s, or the blood of some anonymous soldier that could've been anyone, enemy or ally, that wouldn’t come home.)  
  
Something flew between Elice and the sun— a huge, winged shadow that was enough to snap Elice out of her daze. It’d only been a moment, despite it feeling like a year. She squinted into the bright sky while the battle raged, and the blinding sunlight glinted off the brilliant scarlet red of huge pauldrons and a wyvern-muzzle mask. The beast landed on the fourth choke point, spreading its massive wings and letting out a deafening roar.  
  
Hardin pursed his lips, appraising the situation. “This is a setback,” he admitted, seeming slightly less cheerful than usual. “But you fought her alone once before and lived to tell, aye? With backup, we may be able to at least stand a chance.”  
  
Elice coughed. “Ah, about that…”  
  
“We’ll face her together,” Hardin said, a little more insistently. “Come, Princess Elice! Aurelis is counting on us!”  
  
He had a point. She nodded, giving Hardin a two-fingered salute of confirmation. Hardin grinned under his mustache and mirrored the gesture. Ogma, riding tandem on Hardin’s warhorse, gave Elice a look— as if asking really? _Really?_  
  
“Sedgar, Vyland, Roshea,” Hardin shouted. “Hold the point and stay together!”  
  
His men shouted affirmation, pushing back against the few soldiers of the Macedonian army that remained. They’d cleared the siege point— if they could reach the fourth and Caeda and Katarina came through with their part of the job, victory would be assured. The good news was that Elice didn’t see any more foot soldiers guarding the point. The bad news was the mounted juggernaut that’d taken their place.  
  
Elice cracked her neck. Nothing would get done if she put it off, that much was certain. Across the narrow battlement walkway, Elice locked eyes with the Red Dragoon— and Elice couldn’t _see_ her eyes, behind that tinted visor, but knew, somehow, that she wasn’t looking away. The Dragoon dismounted, landing heavily on the stone. She was all armor and muscle and raw power, honed to a razor’s edge matching the terrifying axe, forged and wielded like the unholy spawn of a double-bearded broadaxe and a halberd. And she swung it like it was nothing, planting its dense pommel on the floor with an intimidating _thunk_. Her message was clear: she may have spared Elice the last time she fought, but she wasn’t going to give her the same quarter this time around.  
  
Elice did not run. She walked, summoning all the dignity she could manage with the cold inevitability of her death breathing down her neck, and did not look away.  
  
The dragon hissed, perched on the sturdiest parts of the battlement wall, curled in a massive crescent around its rider. Its rider, not breaking eye contact, gave Elice a shallow bow, in a mockery of how one would greet a sparring partner before a match. Elice returned it— she may as well, if the Dragoon insisted on pretending they were equally matched.  
  
“I can’t help but notice you’ve left your entourage behind,” Elice pointed out.  
  
“I can’t help but notice _you’ve_ brought one,” the Dragoon replied, nodding to Hardin and Ogma, on foot and flanking Elice with weapons ready.  
  
“In the interest of making it fair,” Elice said. “You said last we met that you would not grant me mercy, should we cross paths again. But, you see, I have no intention of dying today, be it by your hand or anyone else’s.”  
  
“Your bravery does you credit,” the Dragoon told her. “But it won’t save you. I stand by what I said.”  
  
Elice sighed, though she clearly didn’t mean it. “And here I was hoping that I could charm you into changing your mind, and we’d part ways and put off my death for another day.”  
  
The Dragoon made a noise that might’ve been a humorless chuckle, distorted through her mask and deep and rough like the rest of her voice. “No such luck,” she said, lifting her axe. Her visor gleamed in the sunlight and hid her eyes from view. “I will not let you escape my grasp for a third time, Insurgent Princess. My king wants you dead, and I am his executioner.”  
  
She slammed her pommel onto the ground and then swung it around again, gripping the shaft in both her hands. “Face me,” she ordered, authority and power rolling off her in waves. “Face me, and take comfort in the only mercy I will grant you— a swift and painless death!”  
  
With a mighty battle roar, the Red Dragoon swung her waraxe down onto Elice— or where Elice would’ve been standing had she not dodged the lethal blow. The blade cut a cleft in the mortar and spread cracks from both endpoints. She swung again, and this time the shaft stopped, caught on Ogma’s blade, raised in a brace block.  
  
Hardin sprinted around her other side, blade drawn. In the smaller space, they couldn’t rely on trying to stay out of her radius completely, but staying in motion, darting around her blind spots, would help their chances. The Dragoon growled as Ogma twisted his sword, locking it against the interior curve of one of the axe blades. She tightened her grip and swung, ripping away Ogma’s blade and flinging Ogma along with it. He didn’t go far and he didn’t stay down, but it can’t have been fun.  
  
The dragon snarled, snapping at Hardin with its jaws and catching the end of his cape. It yanked him off his feet, swinging him like a doll until the fabric tore. Hardin smacked right into Ogma and knocked them both into the low battlement wall.  
  
The Dragoon swung at Elice again. Elice tried to dodge to the side, but the dragon’s tail forced her inside of the Dragoon’s range— close enough to smell the blood, not quite dry, collecting in the grooves of the golden filigree.  
  
The Dragoon didn’t immediately react, as if she were surprised. Even within arms’ length, her visor’s tint only reflected Elice’s own face, sweaty and grimy and with bright blue eyes widened in surprise.  
  
Elice acted before she could think. She stabbed blind with her dagger. The tip slid just between the bottom of the Dragoon's breastplate and the top of her belt. Elice pushed further, further, through the leathers and padding until it tore into the skin beneath and the Red Dragoon grunted in pain— and she reeled back but Elice kept going, sinking the little blade until it wouldn’t go any further, and until the Dragoon grabbed Elice by the front of her shirt and slammed the metal of her visor right onto the bridge of Elice’s nose.  
  
Her vision went white and then red and then all there was was pain, pain, and her back hitting bricks and blood gushing from her nose. Ogma was front of her when she clenched her jaw against the pain and makes her eyes focused again, between Elice and danger and outlined in the sunlight. The Red Dragoon grimaced, a hand pressed to her side, in pain but far from going down, and dark red blood ran down the metal armor and soaked the layers beneath it. Elice’s dagger, wrenched from her hand, lay in two broken pieces, the metal sticky and hot with Macedonian blood.  
  
Hardin shouted something that Elice couldn’t process through the pain in her face. Arrows shot from the third choke point sliced through the air, bouncing off the Dragoon’s armor but certainly not helping anything. The dragon roared, swiping out with one of its forelegs but falling short of hitting any of the archers by several feet, a roar that almost drowned out the heavy, anxious pounding of her heartbeat in her ears. Warhorns echoed through the hills— more enemy soldiers to try and retake the battlements, and the sounds of marching soldiers warning that they were close.  
  
Elice clenched her jaw against the pain, forcing herself to sit with her back hunched forwards and blood still pouring from her broken nose, already starting to swell. She coughed out blood that’d dripped from her nose down the back of her throat. The cacophony of weapons clashing against armor filled Elice’s ears. The rest of the army had split— half of them pushed back through the captured points and ran to meet the reinforcements, while the other half surged into the fourth siege point to wear down the Red Dragoon. They hadn’t planned for this, but _someone_ must’ve ordered it.  
  
Elice felt a hand on the back of her head, and she dimly registered Sister Lena, her face sweaty and her robes stained with blood, cupping her hand over Elice’s nose. Elice clenched her teeth tighter, pain filling her bloodstream like a wildfire, for several agony-filled eternities that condensed themselves into seconds when the burning pain finally subsided to an angry growl.  
  
She tried to pull herself to her feet, but Sister Lena held her down with surprising strength. “Don’t push it,” she ordered, her voice a mumble only barely heard over the noise— the dragon roaring, the weapons clanging, the reinforcements marching. And on top of all of that, somewhere that started out so distant and faint that Elice thought it was her headache until it got louder, closer— a whistle, sounding long and loud and shrill from the sky.  
  
Elice sighed in relief. _Caeda_.  
  
Able to move again, Elice got to her feet— Caeda’s pegasus flew low over the hills and fast towards the battle, the ring of the whistle echoing off the mountainsides. And then came a rumble like thunder despite the clear sky, a rumble that slowly grew louder until the distant herd following Caeda’s pegasus began to pour out from the hills, and the quiet thunder turned into the unmistakable noise of a thousand galloping hooves.  
  
Hardin shouted _pull back_ over the noise— _pull back,_ and Elice’s army ran out of the path of the oncoming herd, leaving the reinforcements confused and concerned, and perhaps expecting the Red Dragoon to give them an order. She did nothing of the sort.  
  
The Red Dragoon, worn down though she was, looked to Elice once more. “I thought you didn’t have an army,” she said. Her dragon growled, but it seemed more anxious than angry,  curling closer around its injured rider.  
  
Elice should run, but didn’t. “I don’t,” is all she said.

And then she turned tail and sprinted back through the siege points as the galloping grew louder and the herd advanced— closer, closer, until it plowed through the enemy soldiers and hooves pounded against the battlement walls, until the chaos pushed over the support beams and the floor started to cave, until it all crumbled to the ground and the battlefield devolved into chaos and Elice, battered but alive, watched with her soldiers as the Macedon army was trampled under the galloping hooves of over a thousand Aurelian elk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can i stop writing battle scenes now please,


	7. Act 1: The League- Chapter 7: Fire Emblem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _History would call the siege the Retaliation, because it was just that, as far as the bigger picture of the war was concerned— the Dolhrian Empire had thus far assimilated or crushed all in its way on its conquest, and Dorran represented the first major battle in the War of Shadows (as people would come to call it) where the besieged party had won. The war was far from over, but Dorran was the first step._
> 
> _Elice tried not to think about what history would say about her, but sometimes, it’s a little hard to avoid._
> 
> With the battle over, Elice's people have time to recover. Much as Elice wants to do so herself, there's a more pressing matter.

Elice felt terrible.  
  
Which wasn’t all that surprising, given that Elice had done a whole lot of running and fighting, led and won a battle where her forces were massively outnumbered, and gotten her face bashed in, and it wasn’t even lunchtime. She wanted nothing more than to skip the formalities so she could wash off all the grime, eat a sandwich, and maybe sleep for a week, but that wasn’t going to happen at least until they’d met with Princess Nyna.  
  
So Elice’s entire army was stuck milling around the throne room— battered, grimy, and probably getting sweat-stench in the floorboards just by standing there. Father Wrys and Sister Lena stabilized what injuries they could without being in a real infirmary, since it was probably bad diplomatic form to let one of your soldiers bleed out on a prospective ally’s floor. People passed around water skins and bandages and checked on friends, letting the reality that they’d all survived repeat itself as many times as it needed to settle in.  
  
The chamber itself was fairly nice— sturdy construction of granite brick and concrete framed in support beams made of hard, dark wood. The windows were long and set high in the wall and made of wired glass, the panes framed in black iron. The lower halves were opened just slightly to allow the breeze to come through, a blessing in the early summer heat (though it was admittedly cool compared to what Elice was used to in Talys and even Altea). The Aurelian throne, big and broad and draped with a bear pelt, sat empty upon a dais raised two steps above the floor, placed sternly in the middle and against the back wall. More timber framed that spot, built outward with stone. A huge, dark blue banner took up most of that spot of the wall, a fierce bear painstakingly embroidered in dull bronze and pitch black thread on its surface. A scroll in the banner, under the bear, sported the country’s creed in ancient script: _cauye eya ilnaya_ , virtue through action _._  
  
City noise, though indistinct this far inside the castle, filtered through the open windows. Elice had heard it on their walk through the newly-freed city: relieved celebration, both reveling in the victory and being grateful that they’d made it through. History would call the siege the Retaliation, because it was just that, as far as the bigger picture of the war was concerned— the  Empire had thus far assimilated or crushed all in its way on its conquest, and Dorran represented the first major battle in the War of Shadows (as people would come to call it) where the besieged party had won. The war was far from over, but Dorran was the first step.  
  
Elice tried not to think about what history would say about her, but sometimes, it’s a little hard to avoid. It's particularly the case when you're royal, and doubly so when you’re an heir. Until Altea’s betrayal, she’d figured the best she could hope for was that she wasn’t overthrown for tyranny. Leading the shattered remnants of her army in a war to take their home back had sounded distant, untouchable; the kind of thing that happens in history books, but never feels real.  
  
And yet, there she was— the lone surviving royal of Altea, leading what remained of her army and gathering what allies she could to retake her home. A lot can change in two years.  
  
Ogma grunted a tired post-battle greeting to her, snapping her out of her reverie. Elice almost wanted to grunt back, but her nose made that difficult. Sister Lena had healed her nose enough that it wouldn’t move if she tried to wiggle it (as if she would _want_ to), but the rest of it would have to heal on its own— which meant that it was swollen, stopped up on one side, and vibrant shades of red and purple. It also hurt a lot, which she was just going to have to get used to.  
  
Elice nodded to him instead. “Ser Ogma.”  
  
“Your Highness,” Ogma replied. “You doing alright, after all that?”  
  
Elice grimaced. Ogma snorted. “I’ll live,” she promised. “Tell me, do I look as rough as I feel?”  
  
Ogma put a hand to his chin in consideration. Elice figured she didn’t look great— the sweat and grime of battle didn’t look good on anybody, and the broken nose didn’t help matters. She’d had to lop off her braid because it’d gotten so matted with blood and dirt, so jagged edges brushed the back of her neck. Ogma looked similarly battered, with a split lip and a dark red scrape going from his temple to his chin where his face had met the bricks. At least his face had remained intact.  
  
“Permission to speak freely?” he asked.  
  
“Granted.”  
  
“You look like a Macedonian juggernaut smashed your face in,” he said. “So, pretty rough, I’d say.”  
  
Elice smiled wryly. “Well, I never liked this nose very much anyway.”  
  
“It’ll heal up stronger than it was,” Ogma shrugged. “Not that it’s a good idea to rely on that. It’ll still break.”  
  
“Speaking from experience?” Elice guessed.  
  
Ogma snorted. “You get to be my age, doing what I do, you break your nose a few times. Just trying to give some advice.”  
  
“I appreciate it,” Elice promised. “But don’t worry, I’m in no rush to try my luck.”  
  
The chatter quieted all at once— when Elice turned, she could see why. Through one of the doors further towards the back of the room, Hardin had returned with two people Elice had never met. “Apologies for the lack of ceremony, everyone,” he said cheerfully, his voice echoing slightly in the chamber. He stopped in front of the throne, close enough to address the army without straining his voice. “But may I present to you all King Gules Vontague of Aurelis and Princess Nyna Vallerose of Archanea.”  
  
There was a little bit of shuffling as everyone bowed before the two royals, except for Elice and Caeda, who were of generally equal status, and got to nod respectfully instead. Caeda, during this, shuffled around those gathered to stand next to Elice.  
  
King Gules waved a hand. “You may rise,” he said, and the army got to their feet. King Gules was Hardin’s brother, which Elice knew, but he looked much older, with snow-white hair and a thick white beard that covered most of his face. He was also taller, though not by much, and a great deal wider, and even under the blue robe and bear-pelt cloak he wore, Elice could tell that he was deceptively strong and muscular. But his smile was jovial, cheerful like his younger brother’s, as he nodded respectfully to Elice and Caeda.  
  
“Princess Elice and Princess Caeda,” he greeted them in turn. “Quite a shame we haven’t had the pleasure of meeting in person until now— though, Princess Caeda, how fares your father?”  
  
“Much better since the end of winter, thank you,” Caeda said politely, like how one talks to elderly relatives or family friends one hasn't seen in a decade.  
  
“King Gules, we haven’t time for idle pleasantries,” Princess Nyna spoke up. Elice’s full attention turned to her.  
  
Princess Nyna had a serious kind of face, the kind that Elice had seen on intellectuals frowning through their spectacles at textbooks. She didn’t scowl, but she wasn’t smiling like King Gules, even politely, and though the sternness in her eyes lightened slightly when she nodded to Elice and Caeda, the rest of her expression didn’t change. She wore green and had her long, blonde hair up in an ornate style around her crown and her ears that would’ve driven Elice crazy to try and do herself. She was _pretty_ , Elice supposed, but it wasn’t the first thing that Elice had noticed— an unremarkable kind of pretty, to put it shallowly.  
  
“Sorry, Gules, but she’s right,” Hardin agreed. “Gules, Princess Nyna, may I introduce—“  
  
“Princess Elice Lowell,” Princess Nyna cut him off, turning her gaze towards Elice. It was cool and impartial, her eye contact intense and unbreaking. “Friend and foe alike have been  _buzzing_ about you, claiming you’re the savior of the continent. Are they right, do you think, to revere you so?”  
  
Elice coughed, remembering she was supposed to respond to that. She tapped two fingers to her temple in an informal salute— which was a very stupid thing to do, she realized the instant after she did it, to the last surviving member of her suzerain royal family, but Elice had just freed a city and broken her entire face, and didn’t really care. “Your highness,” she said, meeting Princess Nyna’s gaze. “That’s an awfully grave question to ask of someone you’ve just met.”  
  
Princess Nyna’s lips pursed an almost imperceptible amount. Had Elice been looking, she would’ve seen Hardin’s cheerful grin falter, but her vision was locked on Princess Nyna’s, and she refused to falter. “These are grave times we live in,” she replied. “I merely want to know what I ought to expect out of you, if you’re going to defeat the Empire.”  
  
“I’m just here to get my people their home back,” Elice said. “And if I have to execute Emperor Medeus himself to do it, then that’s what I’ll do. Anything else is a bonus.”  
  
Princess Nyna regarded her with something Elice couldn’t quite read. She wasn’t quite haughty, but something close. Something like cold reservation, like Elice was interesting in how she refused to buckle but ultimately beneath her, like everybody else. Elice _hated_ her, right away and without much thought to the reason or care for the fact that they’d been acquainted for about ninety seconds. Time passed that could’ve been seconds or eternities, spite burning hot and acidic in Elice’s gut, eyes locked in a battle of wills— the kind of staredown that only happens between two people similar enough to immediately notice this similarity and stubborn enough to immediately hate it.  
  
Hardin coughed. “I think everyone would prefer it if we kept this short,” he decided, breaking both Elice’s concentration and Princess Nyna’s. “Gules?”  
  
And though King Gules talked about some logistics and such that were probably important, Elice didn’t hear any of it. She didn’t hear it when Princess Nyna addressed the army in general, she didn’t hear it when Hardin gave them directions to the castle guard base, and she only barely felt it when Caeda nudged her and told her they could go. No, Elice heard none of it, her eyes focused solely on Princess Nyna and one single, clear thought: _I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I intend to win._

* * *

  
  
She told Caeda as much, after dinner, feeling significantly less grimy and exhausted but still pretty stuffed-up, which she’d just have to get used to for the next few days. Her impromptu haircut didn’t look any better once she’d washed the sweat out, but at least with that and a change of clothes and a meal, she felt almost like a person— albeit a person with a recently-broken nose.  
  
Caeda looked skeptical. “I think you’re making a big deal out of something that isn’t that big a deal at all,” she said. Which was all she said, because Elice pushed open the door to the council room for her and the conversation had to stop. King Gules, Prince Hardin, and Princess Nyna were already assembled, as were Katarina and Clarisse— of them, Katarina looked actively interested, while Clarisse very much did not, and only looked up from cleaning her fingernails with a knife to sneer at Elice.  
  
Princess Nyna looked up. Elice nodded to her. Princess Nyna narrowed her eyes, just a tiny bit, before turning her attention back to the large, intricate map weighted to the table. It showed the entire continent of Archanea, surrounded by vast oceans on three sides and a frozen wasteland to the north. Hardin was setting up little pewter figures of oxen at various cities and forts marked on the map, with the exception of Dorran, where he’d placed a bear of the same make. Elice wondered, momentarily, how many of those little figures he had, if he had them of every country’s crest animal, and if he’d be mad if she played with them.  
  
“Now that we’re all here,” King Gules began, as Elice picked a chair and sat down. “We can begin the plan of action.”  
  
“Gather the Aurelian army,” Elice guessed. “Go to Altea. Stab that bastard King Jiol right where he deserves it. Fight some fights as needed. What else is there?”  
  
Princess Nyna glared at her over the table. Elice met it with a silent taunt— _your move._  
  
“It’s not that simple,” Princess Nyna said. “For one, this operation doesn’t quite have the support of the Aurelian army just yet. For another, it’ll be more efficient if we’re only fighting this war on _one_ front, and to do that, we would free Archanea first and push the Empire back into their occupied territories.”  
  
Alright, Elice would give her that one. Princess Nyna picked up a figurine of a rearing pegasus and pushed aside the ox sitting on Archanea’s governing march of Pales, setting it on the table with a decisive click.  
  
“For a third,” Princess Nyna continued. “The secondary goal of this campaign must be to recover the Regalia.”  
  
Caeda raised her hand. Nyna nodded to her.  
  
“Right, question— or, three questions, I guess,” Caeda began. “So, just to make sure, what exactly _are_ the Regalia, specifically, and where are they, and why do we have to get them back?”  
  
Princess Nyna pursed her lips in thought, wondering which of Caeda’s questions to answer, but Katarina beat her to answering the first one.  
  
“Archanea’s four Regalia that were used by Rogue-King Adrah to found the Millennium Empire of old,” Katarina began in her soft voice. She hesitated when everyone grew quiet, but Hardin gave her a small, encouraging smile, so she cleared her throat and continued, a little louder. “There’s, um, the lance, Gradivus, said to remember its past battles and give that experience to its wielder. There’s the sword, Mercurius, said to unlock the hidden potential of the wielder and allow them to achieve otherwise-impossible feats. There’s the bow, Parthia, said to grant its wielder immunity to elemental magic. And lastly, the shield— it’s had different names, but people nowadays tend to call it the Brazier… Princess Nyna, your highness, did I get that right?”  
  
Princess Nyna granted Katarina a small smile and a nod, probably because trying to be stern or cold with Katarina was like kicking a puppy. “Exactly so. Parthia is still in Pales, last I saw it, and that’s at least where we’re assuming it to be, since none of our spies report seeing or hearing of Parthia, or indeed, any particularly remarkable bow. Mercurius and Gradivus were taken by the Empire when they attacked Archanea some months ago.” Her voice grew tenser, like she was forcing it to stay even, but she recovered quickly. “Gradivus is in the hands of a man called Ser Camus, one of Grust’s elite Paladin Generals, while the whereabouts of Mercurius are still unknown. I managed to keep the Brazier with me when I escaped, however, so it’s here, in Aurelis.”  
  
“As to why it matters,” Princess Nyna continued. She paced a few steps back and fourth behind her chair like a professor during lecture. “It’s not because of their power, or any supposed boons they may grant, be them fact or fable. Though they are weapons and can be used in battle as a weapon is meant to be, what matters more for our purposes is that they are _symbols.”_  
  
“What of?” Caeda asked.  
  
“History, tradition,” Hardin guessed. “Having some object, a weapon, for instance, that shaped a country still in the possession of that country decades, centuries later is, in a way, as powerful as the weapon itself, because it’s proof that it’s lasted.”  
  
“It’s like carrying your grandfather’s knife because he told you it was lucky,” Elice contributed, seeing that Caeda didn’t quite seem to get it. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Doesn’t matter. You believe it is, and that makes it special.”  
  
Princess Nyna looked mildly impressed, like she was pleasantly surprised that Elice had achieved her expectations, but her expectations were a bar placed on the ground. “Quite so, Princess Elice,” she agreed. “What makes Regalia more than just your everyday heirloom, though, is that the people will take pride in seeing their country’s Regalia displayed— visible proof that their country has lasted through history, and visible hope that it will continue to do so.”  
  
Caeda got it. “So, when the Empire conquered Archanea, they took the Regalia as spoils,” she summed up. “And reclaiming them will give the people their hope back?”  
  
“We can assume so, yes,” Princess Nyna nodded.  
  
Elice cracked her neck. “If that’s what it takes,” she decided. “Then I suppose we ought to get started. When do we march?”  
  
Hardin pursed his lips. “About that, Princess Elice,” he began. “We don’t have the full force of the Aurelian army yet.”  
  
It was nineteen years’ worth of etiquette training that kept Elice from protesting loudly. Instead she frowned, squinting at Prince Hardin and King Gules in turn. “What do you mean, Prince Hardin?”  
  
King Gules spoke up. “Aurelis, like Archanea, is divided into marches,” he explained. “There are six, not counting Dorran, and the united military force is divided evenly among them. Although I do have superiority over the Marquesses, and it would be legal for me to order the military to mobilize and march anyway, I am not exactly in the good graces of most of them, and I fear exercising my power for this purpose would not bode well.”  
  
_This is bullshit,_ Elice wanted to yell. _Make them see reason. The longer we wait, the harder it’ll be to retake Altea— and Archanea, for that matter._ She said none of these things, though, no matter how much she wanted to, and locked her jaw to keep her impulses from taking over.  
  
“I see,” she said, with remarkable composure for someone filled with rage.  
  
While Hardin certainly noticed, and glanced away with his lips pursed, King Gules did not. “Fortunately for you, Princess Elice and Princess Caeda,” he said. “You’ve arrived at a most fortuitous time. Midsummer is just three weeks away, and the festivities are an excellent way to gather the Marquesses and hold discussions without the stiff formality of a ball or gala.”  
  
Hardin quirked an eyebrow. “Gules, are you sure? Three weeks isn’t very long, and Dorran only just barely survived a siege.”  
  
“It’s our best option,” King Gules insisted. “Besides, I would say that having survived absolutely calls for celebration.”  
  
“It _would_ be more efficient to speak with the Marquesses in person than it would be to conduct correspondence,” Princess Nyna admitted.  
  
Caeda’s face lit up. “So it’s basically a big party? I love parties!”  
  
Elice hated parties, but did not volunteer this information. _Do it for Altea,_ she told herself. And since that didn’t do much, she added _you have three weeks to come down with some illness that’ll get you out of it._  
  
“Alright,” she agreed. “If this is what gets the army together, then I’ll gladly do it.”  
  
Hardin looked to his brother. “Can you plan a festival in three weeks?”  
  
King Gules laughed, a deep belly laugh that shook his shoulders. “Oh, ye of little faith,” he said. “I could do it in one.”  
  
Princess Nyna let out a short breath. “I suppose there’s only one thing left, then,” she said, and looked at Elice— stern, reserved, completely unshakeable. Elice may not have liked her, but she would’ve been a fool to say that Princess Nyna didn’t know what she was doing.  
  
“Princess Elice,” she said. “Come with me.”

* * *

  
  
They were alone in the throne room. The summer sun was setting and the fading orange sunlight fell in long rectangles through the high windows, turning all it touched into amber and gold and all it didn’t into cool blues and purples. Princess Nyna stood with her back to Elice, something held in both of her hands, and her hair fell long and golden down her back.  
  
She turned, a golden shield in her hands. It was small, though, for a shield, the traditional shape but not much bigger than a buckler. Five holes, all empty, each about the size of walnuts, were set deep into its slightly-curved face and framed with rings etched with ancient script. The ring around the top one was bordered with a relief carving of a sun with fiery beams, while the rest of the rings were unadorned but set amidst a face carved with tiny constellations. It seemed to hum with a low, dull heat like the lingering red embers of a fireplace.  
  
“The Brazier,” Princess Nyna said, her voice echoing just slightly off the walls of the throne room that wasn’t hers. “Records call it many things— the Seal of Flames, the Lifeward, the Fire Emblem. It was the stuff of myths during the days of the Millennium Empire, and it’s mentioned so frequently but in so many conflicting accounts that all we can be sure of from history is that it existed. The ancient peoples of the continent revered it as a gift from the dragon-queen Naga, and built the Fane of Raman to house it. Rogue-King Adrah carried it when he began his great conquest, and during the last war against Dolhr, Duke Cartas of Archanea wielded it in battle alongside the heroes Anri and Artemis. And now, at the dawn of another war, it goes to you.”  
  
She held it out for Elice to see. Elice knew all the history, but that point didn’t seem like a good time to say that. Uncertainty stirred in her gut, restless and uncomfortable.  
  
She frowned at it. “It’s an honor, your highness, but,” she began. “Why me? Why not Prince Hardin?”  
  
Princess Nyna thought about this. She thought about it for quite a while, the gears in her head turning, weighing the options and choosing her words carefully. The shield’s warm hum stayed constant, and Elice wondered what sort of magic had made it so. Age had dulled its surface and rounded its edges, and grime and dirt caught in the tiny edges where no cloth could reach made every edge look darker. She studied the tiny ancient script around one of the rings and wished she were close enough to read it.  
  
“Prince Hardin is… a good man,” Princess Nyna admitted. “He is considerate and just, and though we’ve been acquainted for essentially my whole life, in recent months I’ve grown to consider him a close friend. He would be a worthy candidate to carry the Brazier, a good choice to lead this liberation army, but…” she paused again, and looked Elice in the eye. They were exactly the same height. “The Brazier is an Archanean treasure. If it’s going to be carried into battle, I feel that the one who does so should understand, at the moment they receive it, what it means— and _will_ mean— for Archanea when the people see it.”  
  
Elice felt grief, the wound of it scabbed over but still unhealed, mix its dull aching into the uneasiness in her stomach. She felt her shoulders ache like they were already tired of a weight Elice had only just picked up, or perhaps they'd just reminded her of the weight she'd been carrying.  
  
“Should you accept the Brazier, Archanea will put its hope for liberation in you,” Princess Nyna continued. “You will be the forefront, the leader of this campaign, Archanea’s champion. It is not a gift. The Brazier carries with it the burdens of authority and command, the burden of a people desperately hoping for salvation.  
  
“Hardin is a good man,” Princess Nyna repeated. “But he does not understand what it means to take on the sort of burden that you or I have.” She paused, looking visibly somber for a moment. “I pray that he never does.”  
  
Elice breathed. Princess Nyna had not broken eye contact. The rectangles of sunlight had turned from orange to crimson and moved from the floor to the wall with the setting sun, and flickering torchlight from the sconces lining the walls and pillars cast her in flickering orange with intense shadows where the light didn’t reach. The windows were closed. The throne room was quiet.  
  
Altea had fallen. Archanea, too, its magnificent palace looted, its royal family dead save for one. Aurelis had come close and managed to avoid it, but it was nowhere near the end of the fighting— only the first uphill stretch of a very long climb. Elice still nursed the slow-healing wounds of grief for her lost home and family, devastating in its suddenness and stinging in its betrayal. The target of her vengeance had a name and a face and the thirst for it paced amidst the fog of hurt and uncertainty. In a moment of clarity, Elice realized that Princess Nyna understood, and perhaps craved vengeance of her own. She _understood_ , and that was why she’d given the Brazier and all it carried to Elice and not Hardin.  
  
“I’ll take it,” she said, with a sureness that surprised even her. “I will carry the Brazier. I will be Archanea’s champion— and _your_ champion, Princess Nyna.”  
  
History would say many things about that era— about Elice, about her people both that she has already met and has yet to meet, about any of the multitude of events that made up the War of Shadows and the subsequent years— that those in the moment could only ever _begin_ to imagine, and even that wouldn’t cover it. There would be different names for the same battle and different titles or even names for the same person, conflicting accounts the world over of who lived and who died, what they went on to do if they lived and how they went out if they died, names and details and relations that’d warp with every retelling or eventually fade out entirely. There would be stories that turned to tall tales that turned to myths as years passed of the people involved and what they did. And as far as anyone at the time knew, Elice’s fate could very well be that she’d perish on the battlefield, Aurelis would be absorbed into the Empire, and the victors would write history again and again until Altea was as much a myth as any folk tale told to children at bedtime. They _hoped_ it wouldn’t, of course, but that was all anybody could do.  
  
But still, that day, that moment— when Princess Elice and Prince Hardin joined forces to free the capital city from the Empire’s hold and it became the first solid victory in what would be a short but brutal war, when she took the Brazier from Princess Nyna’s hands and buckled it onto her arm, when she became the Champion of Archanea and took on a burden that would not be hers in a just world and yet she hefted on her shoulders anyway; that very _moment_ —  
  
Anyone, even Elice, could tell that history had just _happened_.  
  
She might’ve been mistaken, but she could’ve sworn Princess Nyna was smiling as she buckled it onto Elice’s arm. The leather on the back was old, worn to softness and creased with age, and the buckles were sturdy iron. “Champion of Archanea,” Princess Nyna repeated. “Surely only the first of many titles history will give you.”  
  
Elice shrugged, testing the weight of the shield strapped to her upper arm. “I’ll leave history for the historians,” she decided. “That's got a nice ring to it, though. Maybe it’ll stick.”  
  
And Elice didn’t know if it would, because she couldn’t see history— nobody could, no matter how good their foresight. And history being the way it is, some would call her that and some would not, just as somebody could tell the story of the Retaliation as a triumph or a defeat, a cause for celebration or an ill omen of things to come, depending on how they'd lived that day. But that moment on, from the moment the Brazier took its place on Elice’s arm, things had changed, be it for good or ill or, more realistically, a mixture of the two. One thing most historians would agree on, though, was that while Dolhr had started to form its empire some six or seven years previous, that was not the beginning.  
  
On that day, when an allied force of about two dozen people under no orders and with limited supplies and one shot at a terrifying operation defied the odds that were stacked against them and won, fair and square, _that_ day, _that_ was the beginning.  
  
On that day, when the Brazier changed hands once more, the War of Shadows had begun.


	8. Act 1: The League- Chapter 8: Fealty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _To the people, the Brazier represented hope in its bearer ushering in peace and stability again. To the soldiers, it repressented authority, a mark of leadership and deference. To the other royals, it was a signifier of Elice’s willingness to lead from the front. And to Nyna, it was a sign of her trust in Elice to win back the home of not only her own people, but Nyna’s as well._
> 
> _It is easy to preach things like hope and faith and trust, Elice thinks, if you are not the one who carries them._
> 
> Elice, Cain, Abel, and discussions of soldiery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> double update tonight b/c i can't leave well enough alone lol
> 
> also expect bi-monthly updates for the carpenter for a while due to school. in the meantime enjoy fun times with elice

It had been two weeks since the Retaliation. Preparations for the Midsummer Fair were proceeding in Dorran with surprising enthusiasm, for a city that’d come so close to being overrun. The messengers from across the country said that word of the victory in Dorran had inspired the rest of the marches to push back against occupation. The Empire, undoubtedly caught off-balance, had pulled its soldiers back into the occupied Archanea to lick its wounds. Hardin changed the tokens on the map in the council room to match, replacing the hawks, oxen, and swans with bears. The Empire wouldn’t stay there forever, they knew, but there was no denying that for the moment, they were safe.  
  
In that time, while King Gules worked some kind of party-planning magic to get the Marquesses gathered in time for the Fair, Elice turned her attention to the Archanean Liberation League and the new set of responsibilities that came with being its leader. There was martial training, of course, but also lessons in tactics and battlefield commands and how to manage everything that needed managing— which, as it turned out, was a lot of different things. Elice wouldn’t actually put any of these things into practice until the campaign started to move, but they’d be better off if she was prepared before that point, so prepare she would.   
  
It was a lot, Elice would admit, but it was better than dancing lessons.   
  
Preparation meant practice— Jagen had said in no uncertain terms that she’d only survived this long because of luck, and if she were going to champion Archanea, she needed a little more than luck to get by. Which was fair, so Elice had begun spending her afternoons losing practice battles to Cain, Abel, and Ogma. As one might imagine, this meant she was becoming very well-acquainted with being sore.  
  
The ground was hard and unforgiving under her back. One would think that Elice was used to the sensation of getting knocked on her ass, given that she’d fought in about five major battles and spent most of them taking hits, but that was kind of the opposite of the goal. Even so, it still hurt.  
  
Cain took her wrist and pulled her back up. “Come on, your highness,” he said cheerfully— too cheerfully for someone who had spent the entire afternoon kicking Elice’s ass. “Your stance is much better! It was much harder to knock you down that time.”   
  
“Lucky me,” Elice wheezed, doubling over with her hands on her knees to try and catch her breath.   
  
“Aren’t you supposed to try and _hit_ the other person?” Caeda called, sitting on the fence separating the two practice arenas. Jagen had the group of recruits in the other one, and Caeda was there because she was about their age and experience level. The recruits were new— youngsters that’d left Altea when disaster struck and immediately signed back up once word got out that the Altean Army was in Aurelis. There were five of them, and they were young and untrained, but they all seemed to know which end of a blade to hold, so Jagen wasn’t having too difficult a time of it, even with the twins— a brother and sister, both tall and lanky and with mousy brown hair, who seemed to be the stupidest people on the planet and the combined cause of Jagen’s new wrinkles.   
  
“Thanks for the tip,” Elice called back, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Caeda grinned impishly and went back to basic drills with Jagen. Elice took a breath and picked up her dull practice sword. It felt heavy and unbalanced in her hands— or maybe that was just how swords were supposed to feel? The last sword art Elice had trained in was a rapier, not a broadsword.   
  
Cain picked up his sword. “Ready to try again, your highness?”  
  
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Elice cracked her neck. “This time— this time’s gonna be different.”  
  
Predictably, that time was not different.   
  
Or the time after that.  
  
Or the time after that.  
  
“It gets better,” Abel told her helpfully, while Elice was lying on her back in aching misery on a sofa in one of the common rooms of the Aurelian barracks. “I could hardly move during _my_ first few weeks of training, either. You’re moving in ways you’re not used to.”  
  
“That’s right,” Cain agreed. He had his sword in his lap and his reading glasses on his nose, carefully polishing the edge. “Losing just means you’re learning, doesn’t it?”   
  
The castle cat, sitting on Elice’s chest, mrrped. Elice wanted to mrrp back, but her jaw hurt. Evidently, this was just her life now. Everything ached. Her eyelids ached. She didn’t even know eyelids could _do_ that.  
  
“At least ser Jagen’s not teaching you,” Abel pointed out. This was true. Jagen already had his hands full with Caeda and the recruits, and didn’t need to deal with Elice’s apparent hopelessness on top of that.   
  
Elice snorted. “His training may actually kill me.”  
  
“Ser Jagen was an _excellent_ teacher,” Cain protested. “I only wish I could teach half as well as he did.”   
  
“He _did_ teach well,” Abel admitted. “But trying to teach her highness like ser Jagen taught us would qualify as regicide.”   
  
The cat meowed pointedly. He liked to be included. Elice had taken to calling him Meowsy for that reason— and she had no way of knowing the cat’s actual name, so it’d have to suffice.  
  
Elice didn’t know very much about Meowsy. But at the same time, what else was there to know? He was a very handsome cat, all cream and brown and silky, and he knew how handsome he was. As cats often did, he wandered the castle as if he were the king and not Gules, sleeping wherever he suited and feasting on leftovers the kitchen staff had set out. Perhaps they hadn’t set them out for him, but Meowsy knew better. Why, after all, would it exist if it did not exist for him? It was just the way the world worked. Similarly, Meowsy could have gotten attention from anyone he chose, but he was picky— in fact, Elice had only ever seen him ask for it from her. She wasn’t sure what made her so special, but she wasn’t going to complain.   
  
“Damned straight,” Abel agreed. You couldn’t help but agree with Meowsy.  
  
Elice sighed. “Maybe I’m just not suited for combat,” she mused. “Considering how thoroughly I’ve been making a fool of myself.”  
  
“Everyone learns at a different pace,” Abel promised. “I mean, I made a right fool of myself when I was staring out.”   
  
“It wasn’t hard,” Cain mumbled.  
  
Abel glared at him, the ire behind it made somewhat less serious by his freckles and buckteeth. “Anyway,” he said. “Don’t feel too bad, yeah? You’re just starting out.”   
  
“I don’t have the luxury of working up to par, though,” Elice pointed out. “I have to be ready to lead us into battle— as Archanea’s champion, no less.” She shot a wry glance to the Brazier, which she’d unbuckled from her arm and set face-up on a table. Really, what had Nyna been thinking? She’d only won her past battles because of luck.   
  
Cain and Abel exchanged looks.   
  
“Is that really what this is about, milady?” Cain asked, setting his sword down and adjusting his reading glasses.  
  
Elice hesitated. She traced the knots in the grain of the rafters with her eyes until her vision blurred, mulling over how to say what she wanted to say. Meowsy’s tail thumped her chest steadily. He purred quietly, the noise vibrating through Elice’s ribcage. Elice hoped her chest was a good nap spot.   
  
“Cain, Abel,” she began. “I’m asking you both this not as your princess, but as your friend— what do you think of all of this?”  
  
Abel frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean, milady.”  
  
“Well.” Elice weighed her words carefully. “I suppose what I’m asking is, why have you stayed? Altea is gone, but there’s nothing stopping you from pursuing greener pastures— pastures less likely to get you killed than being along for the ride in a wagon hurtling towards an early death.”   
  
Cain straightened his back. “I’m a soldier of Altea,” he said. “I’ve sworn my sword to your cause, milady. Where you go, I follow.”  
  
“As do I,” Abel agreed. He hesitated. “I mean— I may not remember the code down to the letter anymore, not like Cain, but I can’t just leave now. Not before we’ve won back Altea.”  
  
They were pretty answers, but Elice wasn’t satisfied. “And what if I’m leading you towards your deaths?”   
  
“Then I die by my knight’s code,” Cain said solemnly. “So long as that’s the case, I’ll have no regrets.”   
  
“There has to be more to it than that,” Elice pressed. “I know what you think as a knight, Cain, and indeed, I couldn’t ask for a better one. But what do you think as a man with your own thoughts?”   
  
Cain’s mouth twisted into an expression Elice didn’t recognize. He didn’t speak for quite a while. Abel spoke instead, breaking the weighty silence that Elice had drawn like fog over the three of them.   
  
“I just want to go home at the end of the day,” he said, his voice a little quieter. “To ma and dad and their shop. But to go home, home has to still be there. I’m here because that’s how I make sure it will be.”   
  
He shrugged. “Don’t suppose there needs t’be more to it than that."  
  
Cain still hadn’t spoken, but Elice wouldn’t cave. She looked back to him. “And you, Cain?”  
  
He sucked in a breath through his nose. When he spoke again, his eyes blazed— raw fury, an expression that Elice had grown familiar with seeing when she looked in the mirror. “I want to kill that bastard King Jiol,” he said. “And if I die doing so— so long as that’s the case, I’ll have no regrets.”   
  
“And still, you’ll follow me, if that’s the course I’ve planned?” Elice continued.   
  
Cain nods. “I would, milady. Without hesitation.”   
  
Abel glanced from Cain to Elice. “Is that what you’re looking for, milady?” he asked. “You want us to know we won’t desert you?”  
  
Elice shook her head. “No. No, I know you wouldn’t. But—“ she hesitated, the words sticking in her throat.   
  
“I’m not the ruler my father was,” she finally admitted. “I don’t— I don’t know if this grand campaign will succeed. I don’t know if we’ll get Altea back or if I’m leading you all into a slaughter.”  
  
Elice sighed. “What right does a king have to do that? To walk his subjects into the jaws of Death himself, knowing they’re duty-bound to follow?”   
  
“A good king wouldn’t do that,” Cain said. “A _true_ king wouldn’t do that. A true king wouldn’t do that at all, certainly not if he were leading from the front.”  
  
“Perhaps you’re not your father, milady,” Abel admitted. “But how do we know you won’t be better?”  
  
That gave Elice pause. It hadn’t been quite what she was looking for— but even she didn’t know _what_ she was looking for. It was reassuring and nerve-wracking all at once that Cain and Abel trusted her so— she held their reasons for fighting upon her shoulders along with everyone else’s, and she carried the weight of their faith in her as firmly as if it were buckled to her arm like the Brazier.   
  
To the people, the Brazier represented hope in its bearer ushering in peace and stability again. To the soldiers, it repressented authority, a mark of leadership and deference. To the other royals, it was a signifier of Elice’s willingness to lead from the front. And to Nyna, it was a sign of her trust in Elice to win back the home of not only her own people, but Nyna’s as well.  
  
It is easy to preach things like hope and faith and trust, Elice thinks, if you are not the one who carries them.   
  
The door to the barracks opened, and the fog dissipated as if Elice hadn’t asked anything at all. “Evening, your highness,” Gordin chirped, bobbing his head politely. He had a stack of parchment in his hand— letters, folded and sealed with drops of wax. “Oh, and Meowsy.”  
  
Meowsy meowed. It was his way.  
  
“Even’, Gordin,” Abel called back. “What’s that you’ve got?”  
  
“Mail for us,” Gordin said, holding up the stack. “We’ve got one for Draug, one for Princess Caeda, one for Father Wrys, one for Sister Lena… Abel, here’s one for you.” He tossed a letter Abel’s way like one throws a frisbee, letting it spin and arc through the air. It smacked Cain right on the bridge of his reading glasses, making Cain let out a very undignified squawk. Abel snatched it out of his lap before Cain could do anything about it.   
  
“Oh, and there’s one here for you, your highness,” Gordin added. “From someone in Khaedin.”   
  
Elice frowned. “Khaedin? That’s odd. I didn’t think the Empire was letting any mail out of its borders.”  
  
Gordin shrugged. “Beats me. Who d’you suppose it’s from?”  
  
Elice took the letter. It was worn and folded, like it’d spent a good long while riding in someone’s pocket. The wax closing it up looked like candle wax, undyed and unstamped.   
  
Elice sat up despite how much it ached. Meowsy hopped onto her lap, sniffing at the parchment. “I think it’s from Merric,” she guessed.   
  
“Oh, been a while since I saw a letter from him,” Abel remarked, opening his own letter, presumably from his parents, and skimming it. “Hope he’s alright.”  
  
Cain furrowed his brow. “I can’t help but guess that it means something how hastily that letter was sealed,” he says. “And considering that nobody outside the Empire’s heard anything out of Khaedin in months…”  
  
And he did say more, and surely Abel said something in reply. Gordin might’ve contributed. Meowsy definitely did. And Elice could feel Meowsy’s weight on her lap, his tail tapping as he observed his surroundings, his legs tucked up under the rest of him like cats are wont to do. And she knew her muscles ached and she wanted nothing more than to sleep it all off, but—   
  
but none of that was real anymore  
  
but everything had gone very cold and very quiet  
  
but the only noise was Elice’s heartbeat, getting faster, faster  
  
but the only thing was Merric’s letter in her hands and his handwriting, scratchy and semi-illegible but unmistakable, in plain black ink on the battered parchment and what he said—   
  
and the only thing was  
  
 _Marth is alive._


	9. Act 1: The League- Chapter 9: A Sister's Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“We’ll be alright,” Gordin said, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself._
> 
> _“We have to be,” Elice reminded them. “Marth’s waiting for us.”_
> 
> Sometimes it takes a difficult night to bring the truth to the forefront.

Elice hadn’t realized she’d stopped breathing until Abel thumped her on the back. Reality returned but her head still buzzed, her heart still beat, and the words _Marth is alive_ still stuck out to her on the page as if Merric had written them in glowing ink.  
  
Elice coughed. “Marth,” she gasped out.  
  
Cain frowned, sitting up. “Marth?”  
  
“He’s alive—“ Elice sucked in a breath. “He’s alive— Khaedin— Merric—“  
  
It was as if she’d flipped a switch. For a moment, questions overlapped— Cain and Abel and Gordin all asking the same thing at different points, their voices clamoring and only amounting to noise in Elice’s head.  
  
“Wait,” Cain said, the force of it quieting Abel and Gordin. “Your highness.”  
  
Elice’s shoulders shook. Marth was alive. Marth was alive. The parchment crumpled under her hand. “He’s _alive_ , Cain,” she repeated. “Here— this.”  
  
From the folds of the letter, Elice pulled out a little bronze ring on a thin silver chain. It was a simple band all of one metal, with one part of it flattened and stamped with the head of a fox. Elice had one just like it on her left forefinger.  
  
Gordin leaned over her shoulder. “Khaedin Castle,” he read. “Looks like Gharnef has him there— can’t see if he says why.”  
  
Elice almost wanted to cry. “I don’t _care_ why,” she said. “I have to— I have to go get him. I _have_ to—“  
  
“Not without me,” Cain decided. “I’m with you, your highness. Wherever you go.”  
  
“So am I,” Gordin added. “You can’t get to Khaedin all on your own.”  
  
“I’ll go, too,” Abel agreed. “It’s not that far, right?”  
  
Elice felt like crying for an entirely different reason. She felt herself grin despite how dangerously close she was to breaking into sobs. “Naga bless me,” she managed. “I don’t deserve you three.”  
  
Cain stood up, sliding his sword back into its scabbard. “If we leave tonight and don’t stop, we can be back in time for the Midsummer Fair,” he says. Then he turns back to Elice and cracks a smile. “Come on, your highness. Your brother is waiting.”  
  
And he is— he is, because he’s _alive_ , and Elice feels, for a minute, like she could do anything just because of that.  
  
By the time the four of them have hastily packed a few bags, buckled on armor and coats and capes, and made it down to the stables, it was full dark and there were crickets and cicadas humming their songs, heralding the summer season. Elice’s heart pounded strong in her chest— every beat a reminder that each step was a step closer to seeing her brother again. She wondered if he’s grown at all, and if he was still the boy she knew before Altea fell— if he curled up in his chairs whenever possible and remembered everybody’s name and fed birds. She supposed there might be a version of Marth that didn’t, that’s been stuffed in some dungeon without sunlight and fresh air, but it made her heart ache— after all, what sort of elder sister was she that let that happen to him? She thought instead of holding him close again, and this time— _this_ time she’ll be strong enough that she won’t let go.  
  
Elice rode on the back of Abel’s horse as they left Dorran behind, starting on the road out of the mountains. The lakeshore was actually really nice, when it wasn’t being besieged— water lapped at the rocks and reflected the stars back in its dark surface, moonlight outlining every ripple. The night was bright, but there was enough cloud cover that they still needed lanterns, and they dangled off the front of the horses to light the path.  
  
Gordin angled the map, trying to find enough light. “We can probably get as far as Engeram tonight,” he said. “Then tomorrow we can get across Engeram and cross the river into Khaedin. If we’re quick and find a spot between patrols, I don’t think we’ll have trouble with the Empire.”  
  
“Let’s hope,” Cain muttered. “That’ll slow us down.”  
  
“We’ll be alright,” Gordin said, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself.  
  
“We have to be,” Elice reminded them. “Marth’s waiting for us.”  
  
That reminded them what was at stake. They nodded grimly, looking back towards the dark road.  
  
Elice’s ears pricked up at the sound of a horse— fully armored, galloping closer. And then she didn’t have to hear it because she could see it in the lantern light, and Abel’s horse whinnies and rears when the mystery horse plants itself in the middle of the road.  
  
“Why are we stopping?” Elice demanded. “Just go around, it’s a big road. We don’t have _time_ for—“  
  
“I can _assure_ you,” the mystery rider interrupted, in a dreadfully familiar voice. “You have all the time in the world, your highness.”  
  
In another life, it might’ve been funny to see Cain, Abel, and Gordin, trained knights of Altea that Elice has known basically her entire life, look like children caught sneaking extra sweets, but Elice wasn’t thinking about that. She dismounted from Abel’s horse, pulling out her knife before she knew what she was doing.  
  
“You’re not going to stop me, Jagen,” she said firmly. “Nothing you say can stop me.”  
  
“I should first know what on the Divines’ green world you think you’re _doing_ ,” Jagen replied. “Princess Elice, are you aware that a hastily-scrawled note is not adequate permission for leave?”  
  
“Marth is _alive_ , Jagen!” Elice shouted, pulling Merric’s letter from her cloak. “Here— here, Merric wrote me and he included Marth’s signet ring. Marth is alive. Gharnef’s keeping him inside Khaedin Castle. I have to go rescue him, Jagen, I _have_ to.”  
  
Jagen dismounted and took the letter. He sucked in a gasp, but coughed and brought back his composure. “So it seems,” he said. “Princess Elice, I…”  
  
“I’m _going_ , Jagen,” Elice insisted. “Even if I have to walk there.”  
  
“Think about what you’re doing,” Jagen said, unbowed. “You _cannot_ undertake a week’s journey alone, even to rescue your brother.”  
  
“Watch me.”  
  
“Princess Elice!” Jagen’s voice was sharp enough that Cain, Abel, and Gordin all sat up straighter. “You are acting like a child—“  
  
“I know full well what I’m doing,” Elice retorted. “Marth is alive, and he’s _right there_ , in Khaedin, and I have to bring him back!”  
  
“You have responsibilities here, milady!”  
  
“I know! I know,” Elice grit her teeth. She felt herself getting angrier the longer she stood there, still three and a half days from her brother. “But I have responsibilities to Marth, too. To Mother— I promised her I’d keep Marth safe, and I failed two years ago, but I won’t fail again. I can’t.”  
  
Jagen rubbed his temples. “This is not the best course of action,” he says. “Princess Elice, you’re letting your temper run ahead of you. And so are the rest of you,” he says pointedly to Cain, Abel, and Gordin. “Did _any_ of you truly think this plan through?”  
  
“I can’t just— just _sit around_ sorting out every little detail,” Elice protested. “Are you suggesting I just let him rot in Khaedin?”  
  
“I’m telling you that you cannot just _run_ _off_ and mount a rescue mission to Khaedin without so much as a backup plan,” Jagen replies. “Princess Elice, you have more to worry about than rescuing your brother!”  
  
Elice feels her blood start to rush, boiling-hot, in her ears. “And what would you have me worry about instead, Jagen?” she demands. “Dancing lessons? How to grovel properly so the Aurelian nobles will pretty-please let me borrow their soldiers?”  
  
“This is not just about you, milady, think of Altea—“  
  
“ _Fuck_ Altea!”  
  
The words left Elice’s mouth before she could think about them, which is how it goes for a lot of things she says, but this especially. The lanterns clattered where they’d fallen when Elice’s energy had made them fall, and Jagen recoiled as if he’d been slapped, but Elice just breathed, steadied her shaking lungs, and charged onwards.  
  
“This is about _more_ than Altea,” she said. “This is my _family_. This is my _brother_. I’d let a thousand Alteas fall if it means I bring Marth home safely, Jagen. I’d walk to Khaedin from any corner of the continent. I’d fight through anything that bastard Gharnef could throw at me if it means— means—“  
  
Her voice broke. She hadn’t realized it, but there were tears on her cheeks. She _was_ crying, she realized numbly. Her anger left her raw and hurting, all the heat gone. But she meant it, all of it, with every fiber of her being.  
  
And yet, at the same time, she just wanted to curl up under her bedcovers and cry like a child.  
  
Elice fought to steady her breathing again, but her chest felt thick, full of sobs she forced down, because surely, surely it was bad form to break down in tears in front of one’s soldiers.  
  
“I would fight a _hundred_ wars,” she said, her voice clogged but her words sincere, “if it meant I could bring Marth home safe at the end.”  
  
Jagen took a slow, deep breath. “I know, your highness,” he said. And what Elice heard between his words is that he would, too.  
  
Jagen took them all back to Dorran. They put the horses away, and put away their weapons and armor, and returned to the barracks, to shared bunks or, in Elice’s case, to a single-bed room made for an officer. Elice went to bed but spent what felt like hours staring at the rafters, her breathing thick in her lungs but her eyes damnedly, stubbornly open. She wasn't sure if sunrise or sleep came first, but she couldn’t make herself care.  
  
Morning still came. Father Wrys gave her an extra helping of peaches at breakfast time— as if he somehow knew it was a rough night. Elice thanked him, expecting she won’t eat it and will give it to one of the twins or something, but to her surprise, found that she was hungry enough to eat not only both helpings of peaches, but also her entire egg scramble and several pieces of toast, and she’s halfway through working out how to steal the strawberries from Caeda’s plate when she felt someone behind her.  
  
She turned. It was Princess Nyna. Elice immediately regretted coming out for breakfast— of _all_ the people to see her after a night like last, Nyna might’ve been the worst.  
  
“A word,” she said. It wasn’t a request. Elice left her plate in the dish bin and followed Nyna.  
  
Nyna led her to a small study. She gestured for Elice to sit on the loveseat stuffed into one corner, below the window. To Elice’s surprise, Meowsy trotted in through the slightly-open door and sat himself on Elice’s lap, purring and demanding attention. Elice scratched his ears idly, hoping Nyna had a point to bringing her here.  
  
Nyna looked like she was about to say something, but closed her mouth when she saw Meowsy, then opened it again. “I see you’ve met my cat,” she said.  
  
Elice stopped mid-scratch. “ _Your_ cat?” she repeated.  
  
“Yes,” Nyna said, like Elice was an idiot.  
  
Alright, whatever. Elice shrugged. “What’s his name?”  
  
Nyna hesitated for just long enough that Elice was pretty sure she was lying. “Erasmus,” she said. She looked at Erasmus, who leaned into Elice’s hand with his head in search of affection, which Elice gave.  
  
“Odd,” Nyna remarked. “He’s not usually so affectionate.”  
  
Elice shrugged. “Animals tend to like me. I wouldn’t worry about it.”  
  
“I suppose I ought not, with other, more pressing matters,” Nyna admitted. “Princess Elice, about last night.”  
  
Elice was dreading this. “What about it?”  
  
“Is it true that your brother may yet live?” Nyna asked. “That he’s been captured and being held in Khaedin?”  
  
Elice, in lieu of answering, handed her the letter. “That’s from our friend Merric,” she explained. “He’s been studying magic up in Khaedin for several years now. We stopped hearing from him when Khaedin and Dolhr allied. But I know it’s the truth— Merric enclosed this.” She held up Marth’s signet ring.  
  
Nyna hummed, sitting down at the desk chair and reading over the letter. “I see,” she said— impartial, impassive. Elice wanted to roll her eyes in disgust and did not.  
  
“I… suppose I understand,” Nyna finally admitted, setting the letter on her lap and smoothing it over her knees. “If I were to recieve word that a member of my family still lived, I…” she shook her head. “I suppose I just wanted to tell you that I don’t hold last night against you. Even if it was irresponsible and foolish and could have very well resulted in your death.”  
  
“I’ve already had one lecture,” Elice sighed. “Spare me the second.” Erasmus— gods, Elice would never get used to calling him that— meowed in agreement.  
  
Nyna pursed her lips in an expression Elice has come to learn is mild irritation. “Well, then, I shan’t keep you,” she says. “Just do try not to fling yourself into danger any longer. You are still, after all, Archanea’s Champion, and you’re of no use to me if you’re dead.”  
  
Elice saluted with two fingers. “My lady,” she quipped. “I wouldn’t dream of letting you down.”


	10. Act 1: The League- Chapter 10: Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You’re welcome to grant me magic powers any time, you know,” she told it. “Some kind of something to make me look like a real commander. If I can fake it a little more convincingly, I’ll get there eventually, right?”_
> 
> _The shield did not reply._
> 
> _Elice groaned, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Nice, Lowell, you’re talking to a shield. You’re speaking, out loud in an empty room, to a piece of magic metal.”_
> 
> Elice has some doubts.

On the first day of the Midsummer Fair, Dorran’s city streets bubbled with activity. It was the beginning of a three-day period of celebration surrounding the summer solstice, and one could feel the excitement in the very air. Public spaces were decorated with streamers and strands of light baubles made from magical fires trapped in tinted glass ornaments, every store taking advantage of the traffic to boast sales and deals better than their rival’s. In Dorran’s biggest park, farmers brought in their fresh produce and hawked their goods as merchants did. Still more merchants set up stalls on the sidewalks of the busier streets, showing off street food and fancy trinkets with no real use. Other parks and empty lots were set aside for simple (yet strangely unwinnable) games and entertainers that played their music ever louder to compete with their rival performers and the general noise that a busy festival brought.   
  
It was a familiar, nostalgic sight— Elice supposed that festivals don’t change much from country to country. Looking through the tall castle windows at the sprawling, bustling city below, Elice could almost believe she was home.  
  
Prince Hardin didn’t speak when he came to linger by the window beside her, only nodded politely, and followed her gaze to the city below.   
  
“Dorran has always been the crown jewel of Aurelis,” he said. “The epicenter; the last bastion in a siege. Though I admit I never thought it’d come to that.”   
  
“I never thought Altea would fall,” Elice replied with a shrug. “But I’m glad Aurelis avoided the same fate.”   
  
Hardin hummed. “The other marches will need time to recover, but our scouts report that the Empire’s soldiers have left our borders,” he said. “Word traveled fast once we broke the siege here, and our armies were able to push back. It was close, but was a victory.”   
  
“That’s what counts,” Elice agreed. “Aurelis survived another siege.”   
  
“Mm.” Hardin nodded, looking back at the skyline— the bustling city, the cobblestone buildings, the bridge across the lake, the pine forests covering the hills surrounding the basin.   
  
“So how are you feeling?” he asked, a little quieter so no one passing would overhear unless they were trying to. “Don’t worry— I won’t tell a soul.” His eyes sparkled playfully, and Elice couldn’t help but crack a brief smile.   
  
“Tired,” she admitted. “Sore. Homesick. More tired. Hungry.”  
  
“Ah, look at that, you’re getting used to soldiery!” Hardin joked, the humor interwoven with an unsaid bitterness that this is what their people are facing. The jest faded with his next words. “You do get used to it, you know. Either that or you die, but dying isn’t exactly an option for you.”  
  
“Great,” Elice said dryly. “You know, I’d much rather fight through every soldier the Empire has than deal with all of this nonsense.” _If it means saving Marth_ was what she didn’t say, and though the words were true and the glimmer of hope it gave coursed through her veins, she tasted iron on her tongue and wished she were a better soldier, a better leader, a better sister.  
  
Hardin nodded. “I’ve never cared for bureaucracy myself,” he admitted. “We’re alike in that sense, you and I. We prefer direct action and damn the consequences.”   
  
Elice smiled halfheartedly. “Some heir I make. I’m as charming as a rat in a dress at diplomatic functions and I’m about as good in battle.” Her smile faded, and the shade-cool air of the castle suddenly felt like it was full of cobwebs. “Princess Nyna must’ve misjudged me. I can’t lead a liberation campaign, much less a country.”   
  
“Don’t let _her_ hear you say that,” Hardin chuckled.   
  
“Oh, what, is she too _good_ to be wrong?” Elice drawled, leaning on the wall. “Maybe she was fooled by the fact that I got lucky in all my battles. Luck and Malledeus’s tactics, that’s all.”   
  
Hardin studied her. “You truly think that?”   
  
Elice shrugged. “Who knows?”   
  
Hardin frowned, and Elice idly thumbed at the grout between the bricks while she watched kites bob above the buildings, flown from the green and along the shorelines.   
  
“You must miss your brother very much,” Hardin said quietly. Elice stiffened, which was how Hardin knew he was right. “Knowing he’s alive, still.”   
  
Elice sighed. “I should’ve just gone on to Khaedin,” she muttered. “I’d walk there if it means Marth is safe. Every second I’m here is another second he spends probably locked in some dungeon or something, thinking his whole family is dead and his kingdom is ash and gravel. I should be out there, at least making _progress_ , rather than here, entertaining nobles and watching Caeda lose at festival games.”   
  
Hardin nodded. “Would you like me to tell you the lie you want to hear, or the truth you don’t like?”   
  
“Kind of a crap sandwich either way, isn’t it?” Elice said wryly.   
  
Hardin snorted, hiding his laughter with a cough when he noticed Princess Nyna approach. Meowsy darted out from behind Nyna to curl around Elice’s legs, meowing for attention, so Elice crouched to give him what he obviously deserved.   
  
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Nyna said politely.   
  
“Just admiring the view,” Elice shrugged. “Have the marquesses started arriving?”   
  
“King Gules has them well in hand,” Nyna promised. “Though we’re all expected to be in attendance for the banquet tonight. Have either of you seen Princess Caeda? She ought to hear this, too.”  
  
“Katarina’s showing her around the fair,” Hardin answered. “I’ll pass along the message if I run across them down there.”   
  
Nyna hummed. “Be careful, Prince Hardin. Dorran may be freed, but we are still at war. There may be spies for the Empire in the midst of those merchants and performers.”   
  
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Hardin promised. “I’ve got the Wolfguard taking turns patrolling down there and Malice keeping an eye on the arena. Between the six of us, Dorran is hardly defenseless.”   
  
She didn’t look convinced, but wasn’t going to bother trying to argue with Hardin’s relentless optimism. “I’m going to hope that you’re right,” she said.   
  
Hardin gave her a boyish grin. “That reminds me, I ought to check in with them. Oh, Elice?”   
  
Elice looked up, stopping mid-pet. Meowsy had climbed into her arms and was very thoroughly enjoying the attention. “Sorry?”   
  
“The banquet isn’t until much later this evening,” Hardin said. “You’ll have time to explore the fair yourself before then, once you’re done spoiling Nyna’s cat.”   
  
“I’ll do that,” Elice promised, knowing full well she would likely not do that.  
  
“Then until tonight, your highnesses,” Hardin said, bobbing his head politely before turning and walking back down the castle halls.   
  
Elice let out a haggard sigh. Meowsy meowed and swatted at her free hand. Elice resumed the petting and felt a little bit better, though that was a low bar.   
  
Nyna took a look out the window, gazing down at the people below. “Reminds me of midsummer in Pales,” she commented. “I suppose festivals don’t change much from place to place.”   
  
“Mm.” Elice hummed. “Makes you a little homesick, doesn’t it?”  
  
“A bit,” Nyna admitted.  
  
“I used to take Marth, when we were kids,” Elice remembered, fondness and regret seeping into her tone in equal measures, turning the memory bittersweet. “He always liked the petting zoo, and buying packs of breadcrumbs to toss to seagulls. One time, when he was about seven, I walked away to buy us lemonade, and when I got back, he’d somehow found a raccoon and was petting it like a cat. Didn’t scratch him once.”   
  
Nyna raised an eyebrow. “How in the world did he manage that?”  
  
Elice shrugged. “We still don’t know. But that kind of thing’s happened all his life. I was too young to remember, but my mother liked telling this story of this one time she’d forgotten to close the window when putting Marth to bed, so when she got there in the morning, he was sitting in his crib babbling to the birds on the windowsill.”   
  
She swallowed, trying hard to get past the lump in her throat. “He’s always been like that, you know? He likes feeding the birds in the courtyard, and playing with the castle cats. He’s one of the only people who could play with the soldiers’ guard dogs like they were puppies, though it scared Mother half to death the first time she saw him do that. And honestly, people liked him, too. I can’t think of anybody who didn’t. He had the entire castle wrapped around his finger by the time he was about four.”   
  
Nyna was quiet. “He sounds like a fine young man,” she said softly. She was listening, but Elice didn’t doubt she was thinking about her family, too.   
  
Elice nodded. “He’s sweet, and kind, and so, _so_ gentle, and… well, he’s more of an heir than _I’ll_ ever be, that’s for damn sure.”  
  
“Why is that?” Nyna asked. If Elice were in a better mood, she’d make some quip about how Nyna must be growing fond of her, getting curious enough to ask questions, but she didn’t have it in her.  
  
“He likes diplomacy and negotiations and that kind of thing,” Elice shrugged. “He was the star of every important noble function we had to attend— which was pretty much all of them. He has the charisma it takes to lead a country, not me. I was just some girl in a dress that everyone had to pretend to like.”   
  
Nyna stayed quiet for a while, choosing her words carefully. “Princess Elice,” she finally said. “Do you truly hate functions like this that much?”  
  
Elice grimaced. “Gods, yes. I _hate_ this— I hated it when I was young and I hate it even more now. There’s a _war_ going on, there are people dying and suffering under the Empire, and I’m stuck here practicing manners and dancing and fake smiles when I should be doing my gods-damned job as an heir and working towards freeing my people— _and_ yours, for that matter— and all the while my brother i-i-is locked away in some tower somewhere in Khaedin thinking his entire family is dead and his country has fallen!”   
  
The torches in the wall sconces burned brighter and brighter as her voice got louder, her anger bright and hot and refusing to be caged, but Elice didn’t care. Meowsy jumped from her arms to the stone sill next to Nyna and she barely noticed.  
  
“I’m _sick_ of this,” she hissed, her fists clenching on the stone. “I’m _sick_ of having to play along with the games royals play as if the people fighting in their names are nothing more than pieces on a gameboard, as if their lives are worth more than their people’s because some idiot put a crown on his head a thousand years ago and decided he was in charge because he had the most money and the biggest army! I’m sick of— of _waiting_ , of having to beg a bunch of rich fops to borrow their army because, you know, no big deal, we’re just trying to save the continent you live in, and I’m sick of being nice and pretty and wearing— _fucking_ — _dresses!”_  
  
The torches flared to a roar and then shrank back to their normal size, sending off rings of sparks that vanished into the air. The anger left her as the torches waned, leaving a rawness in her throat and an ache in her chest.   
  
She sucked in a slow breath through her nose, forcing her jaw to unclench itself. Princess Nyna looked calm, but Elice saw anger in the severity of her face, and she couldn’t place why it looked so familiar until she realized that she saw it every time she looked in a mirror.   
  
“I’m going for a walk,” Elice decided, before Nyna could unleash upon her what would no doubt be the verbal equivalent of several very sharp knives to the torso. “If you’ll excuse me, your highness.”   
  
Perhaps it was providence that led her feet to take her to the barracks common room, mercifully empty— the rest of her army was probably enjoying the festival and having fun. Someone responsible had put out the fire in the fireplace, so the room was pleasantly cool and dark. Elice, channeling the moody teenager she was once upon a time, flopped onto her favorite couch face-first, her shins bumping against the opposite armrest.   
  
Elice liked this couch. This couch didn’t care about Brazier-bearing or noble parties or how good an heir she was or anything like that. This couch just wanted her to lie on it, or sit on it, or whatever struck her fancy, because it had one job, as a couch, and that was that it was meant to be sat or lain upon. It did not judge who did so, regardless of who they were, and Elice appreciated that. This couch was very good at its job.  
  
She unbuckled the Brazier from her arm, where it generally stayed, and squinted at it in the low light. Elice had been taught Ancient Archanean as part of her princessly education, but she couldn’t quite tell what the characters were. She turned over onto her back, her head pillowed on one of the armrests, and sighed at the shield propped against her knees, emmanating its ever-present gentle warmth that never got prickly and uncomfortable no matter how hot the weather was.  
  
“You’re welcome to grant me magic powers any time, you know,” she told it. “Some kind of _something_ to make me look like a real commander. If I can fake it a little more convincingly, I’ll get there eventually, right?”  
  
The shield did not reply.  
  
Elice groaned, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Nice, Lowell, you’re talking to a _shield_. You’re speaking, out loud in an empty room, to a piece of magic metal.”   
  
She ran her thumbs over the metal. Its warmth brought to mind the memories of hanging her stockings in front of the hearth at night during the winter so they’d be warm when she woke up, and the one time she forgot and set one of them on fire by accident. She’d promptly burned the other one to hide the evidence, and neither of her parents found out.  
  
She supposed they never would now.  
  
Someone knocked on the door twice, then gently pushed it open. Elice did not turn to look at them. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, denying to herself and to the world that she’d gotten misty over the memory of burnt socks.  
  
“Princess Elice,” they said, in a far-too-familiar voice, which Elice was pretty sure she was hallucinating.  
  
“Your highness,” she replied, in case she wasn’t. But she wasn’t going to bow, as was customary. Instead, flippantly, she did her two-fingered salute.   
  
“We didn’t get to finish our earlier conversation,” Princess Nyna continued. “I would very much like to.”  
  
Elice sighed. “Right, yes, I know the drill. You’re going to lecture me on responsibility and tell me I’m too old to behave like this until I make some vague noises about doing better.”  
  
Princess Nyna’s jaw tensed, just a tiny bit. “You are _not_ making this easy.”   
  
“It’s quite bold of you to assume I would _ever_ make _anything_ easy.”   
  
Out of the corner of her eye, Elice saw Princess Nyna rub her temples, glare at the ceiling in frustration, and then take a short breath through her nose. She wondered if Nyna was regretting making her Archanea’s champion. Elice knew she herself would’ve.   
  
“What I’m trying to say,” Nyna continued. “Is that I understand at least part of what you’re feeling, Princess Elice, about your brother. If there were any hope I would have that one of _my_ siblings were still alive…” she stopped there, presumably because that threatened showing emotion.   
  
“If you understand, then why put up with all this?” Elice replied, setting the Brazier aside and sitting up. “The lies. The waiting.”   
  
Nyna shrugged, just a little. “I don’t know how to do anything else, Princess Elice. _I_ cannot solve problems through martial means. My weapons are my words and my knowledge of the laws of the land.”   
  
Elice chuckled without humor. “Well, we’re very different people.”   
  
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown, Princess Elice,” Nyna said cooly. “No matter whose crown it is or when it’s given.”   
  
“Look, Princess Nyna,” Elice sighed. “I know I’m not behaving in the way I ought to be. I know I’m going to have to buck up and shove myself into a dress and pretend to be the perfect princess. You don’t have to try to relate, or drop in phrases from _Aesops for Little Scholars Volume Four_ to get me to do that.”  
  
“That one was actually from Volume Two. Also, that’s not the point,” Nyna said. “Princess Elice, I’m not trying to lecture you on responsibility. I’m not your mother or your babysitter, and frankly, I don’t see the point in doing so anyway, since you clearly just do whatever it is you please.”  
  
“Hey, now—“  
  
“I’m _trying_ to reiterate to you that I don’t want to be your enemy _or_ your rival,” Nyna continued. “We don’t have to be the best of friends. We just have to tolerate each other enough to share a few dances at the banquet and present a united front to the Aurelian nobles.”   
  
She stood back up and turned to leave. “Just let me do the talking,” she said. “Go enjoy the festival for the time being. Oh, and, Princess Elice.”   
  
Elice frowned. “Yes?”  
  
She might’ve been mistaken, but she thought she saw the glimmer of a crafty smile on Princess Nyna’s stern, elegant face. “There’s no law saying you have to wear a dress, you know,” she said. “I’m certain we can work something out.”   
  
Elice would just have to guess at what that meant. Nyna turned and left, leaving Elice with her shield, the empty fireplace, and more questions than answers.


	11. Act 1: The League- Chapter 11: Den of Bears

Elice tightened the buttons of her cuffs. The embroidery, freshly cleaned, glinted in the candlelight. Her short hair brushed against her collar, which she smoothed down and fixed so it wasn’t sticking out so much. She adjusted the buckles keeping the Brazier on her arm, as it always was— it was more important now than ever to keep it with her, as it was visual proof of her authority. Likewise, her dagger was securely in a polished sheath on her belt, even if it seemed unlikely she was going to have to use it. But Hardin and Nyna had assured her that it was necessary; for nobility that haven’t seen a battle in their lives, a weapon was a status symbol, and the chips in her blade and the wear on her shield would serve only to back up her story as a warrior, a soldier. For once, a resting scowl and the crookedness of her broken nose would work for her, as she was a warrior and champion before she was a princess, here, and she had to present a unified image if she was going to have any influence.  
  
And, she noted, if she was leaning into the idea of _warrior_ , the dress uniform spoke louder than a dress would’ve.   
  
She adjusted her collar in the mirror in her chamber for the fourth time. Bronze buttons and trim gleamed against the dark blue of her doublet, reflecting the flickering torchlight as the sun slowly lowered itself towards the horizon on the longest day of the year. Elice stood before the mirror with her short hair and crooked nose and her dagger at her side, and she took in the sight of herself in the same doublet and trousers and boots that her soldiers wore, and she almost didn’t reconize herself.  
  
“We,” she told her reflection. “Look fine as hell.”   
  
Caeda rapped on the door. “Elice, hurry up,” she called. “Hardin says they’re going to start the party soon and we need to be there.”   
  
“Don’t have a fit, I’m on my way out,” Elice called back. She gave her collar one final adjustment and then tore herself away from the mirror, shutting it firmly behind her. Caeda leaned on the wall in a pretty yellow dress and a dress uniform jacket that matched Elice (though it was obviously tailored to be her size), her hair down instead of back and up in its typical ponytail. She gasped happily when she saw Elice, clasping her hands together in excitement.  
  
“You look really good!” she crowed. “Come on, we have to hurry.”   
  
Elice followed Caeda down the castle halls. They skirted into the ballroom right as the guards were shutting the doors. The ballroom was filled with nobles and other guests dressed in finery. King Gules stood in the center, addressing the crowd, with Hardin at his right and Nyna at his left. Elice scooted into place next to Hardin, hoping nobody would notice. By the glance Nyna sent her, at least _she_ had.   
  
“About time,” Hardin murmured out of the side of his mouth. “You look good, though. The uniform suits you.”   
  
Elice tried not to visibly preen. “Well, it’s the one thing about tonight that I don’t _completely_ despise,” she replied. “Is everything in order? Your Wolfguard?”  
  
“Keeping the perimeter secured,” Hardin said. “If anything urgent happens, we’ll be the first to know.”   
  
“And someone’s watching Rickard and Ryan, right?” Elice asked. Rickard and Ryan were the Altean army’s youngest charges, both ten (though they were ten and three-quarters and ten and a half, respectively, which they both would insist), and both only there because they had nowhere else to go. Elice was admittedly a sucker for a sob story, to Jagen’s chagrin, and the entire inner circle had decided, silently and without discussion, that neither of them would see any combat for the entirety of the war.  
  
“I stuck them with Father Wrys,” Hardin said. “Even _those_ two can’t antagonize him.”   
  
“We’ll need to keep a close eye on the dessert table just in case,” Elice suggested.   
  
Hardin nodded. “Right you are.”   
  
“Shut _up_ , both of you,” Nyna hissed.   
  
Hardin grinned apologetically. Luckily Gules finished talking soon after, dismissing everyone to the party as the music started up. Elice fidgeted with the buttons on her jacket. Nyna looked stunning, as usual, though she’d traded her typical green dress for one in midnight blue shimmering with tiny golden and silver sparkles that caught the torchlight and lit her up like the night sky, and she’d painted her lips a bright ruby red that somehow only made her more authoritative. Then Elice caught herself staring and busied herself with her cuffs again.  
  
“So, here’s our plan,” Nyna said to her and Hardin. “Princess Elice, there are six Marquesses of Aurelis that we need to win over. We can live with only winning over three, but the more, the better. Marquesses Gorning, Wylde, and Stubb will be easiest— I can handle them, since all it’ll take is a bit of charm.”   
  
“Charm really isn’t my _best_ skill,” Elice mumbled.  
  
“I’m going to leave Marquesses Blome, Braunston, and Redpeak to you,” Nyna decided. “Blome is old-fashioned and a traditionalist, but if you demonstrate martial prowess in, say, a duel, he’ll be more likely to listen to you. Braunston is involved in quite a lot of less-than-legal business, so if you find some information to use against him, you can easily blackmail him into it— or if you don’t want to do that, gambling _may_ work as well. Marquess Redpeak isn’t really in charge— everyone knows his wife, Marchioness Amelia, is the one you have to convince, so if you can get _her_ to agree with you, then the Marquess will, too. Do you understand?”  
  
“Duel, blackmail, seduce,” Elice repeated. “Got it.”   
  
Nyna seemed satisfied, and gave Elice a quick once-over. “Well, you certainly clean up nicely enough,” she decided. “If you choose your words carefully and think before you speak, I suppose you’ll be adequate enough at drumming up some support.”   
  
“Are all your compliments this backhanded, Princess Nyna?” Elice replied.  
  
Nyna smiled wryly. “When you’ve earned my _sincere_ respect, I’ll be certain to let you know. Best of luck, Princess Elice.”   
  
Elice gave her a two-fingered salute. Nyna melted into the crowd, painting a smile on her face like she was born to mingle with the upper crust of society. Elice turned to Hardin, who was watching with an amused smile.  
  
“What’s so funny?” she asked.  
  
“Princess Nyna,” Hardin said. “Either despises you or is in love with you, and I can’t tell which.”   
  
“Helpful,” Elice drawled. “Speaking of help, do you know why the Marquesses won’t just agree with what the king says? I mean, he _is_ the king, right?”  
  
Hardin rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s… partially my fault,” he admitted.  
  
Elice arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”  
  
“Until very recently, slavery was illegal but still extremely common in Aurelis,” Hardin explained. “Part of one of the things I did was free the slaves that I could find, which naturally didn’t make me very popular with the nobles. When my brother was finally able to crack down, I’d already made a reputation for myself. Suffice to say, those who depended on slave labor to make money are not particularly fond of me.”   
  
“Well, I’d consider that a compliment,” Elice replied. “I’m pretty sure that slavery is one of those things that is bad.”  
  
“You know, you would think that’s common knowledge,” Hardin said. “But evidently, it’s not. Anyway, that’s why it’s going to take a little more finagling to rally the army.”  
  
“Well, it’s good to know the kind of people I’m up against,” Elice admitted. “Time to charm some nobles.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Marquess Miles Redpeak had a look about him that told Elice he’d probably rather be fishing. He looked about thirty, and he had tiny round glasses, a sad-looking mop of blond hair, and a very melancholy kind of set to his mouth. By costrast, Marchioness Amelia Redpeak was short, redheaded, and looked like she was perfectly in her element. So all Elice had to do was convince her to see her side of things— alright, she could do that.  
  
She sauntered over, plastering an easy smile on her face, making sure the Marchioness saw her there but that she wasn’t looking her way. Elice casually admired a large sculpture of a bear set inside a little alcove, subtly watching the Marchioness out of the corner of her eye. She was looking at Elice over her wineglass— good.   
  
Elice turned to her. “Good evening, my lady,” she said politely, bowing just enough to seem respectful but not so deep as to be foolish. “Enjoying the party?”   
  
Marchioness Redpeak smiled. “I am indeed,” she said. “So much activity. War is horrible, certainly, but I can’t say it doesn’t make my husband’s job less interesting!”  
  
Elice prayed to Naga, or whoever was listening, that her smile didn’t visibly falter. She coughed. “Oh, most certainly, my lady,” she said. “It very much isn’t boring.”   
  
“You were on the front lines for the siege, weren’t you?” Marchioness Redpeak said. “Princess Elice of Altea?”  
  
“It was an honor to fight beside his highness, Prince Hardin,” Elice said. “And, yes— what remains of Altea, anyway.”   
  
“Mm, yes, I heard about that,” Marchioness Redpeak agreed. “My condolences.” Which is what one says about a dead goldfish. She swirled the dark red wine in her glass idly while her husband stared at a tapestry with his eyes glazed over, daydreaming about public works projects. Elice felt a twisted mass of grief well up under her diaphragm, and forcibly swallowed it, shoving away thoughts of wine and blood and blood and wine.   
  
“Thank you,” she said hollowly. She cleared her throat. “I’m just pleased Aurelis didn’t suffer the same fate.”   
  
“It _is_ nice to win, isn’t it?” the Marchioness remarked. “I’ve never seen battle, myself, so I can only imagine the thrill of victory at the moment it happens. It must be truly glorious.”  
  
“It is…” Bloody and horrific and exhausting. “A relief, the end of a battle.”   
  
“So you fought alongside Prince Hardin and his Wolfguard yourself?” Marchioness Redpeak asked. “It must be an honor to have him think of you as a peer. You must be truly skilled.”   
  
Elice chuckled humbly. “Oh, I don’t know about that, my lady,” she said. “But it _is_ an honor, yes.”   
  
“Oh, such modesty!” Marchioness Redpeak laughed. Her laugh was high pitched and haughty. “You honor me, your highness. Why, if I didn’t know you were royalty, and were it not for that crown on your head, I’d have thought you another soldier. You’re certainly dashing enough for it.”   
  
“Oh, am I?” Elice replied. The fact that she was saying that was probably good, right? She was probably on the right track. “You flatter me.”   
  
“Give yourself some credit, my lady,” Marchioness Redpeak insisted. “Why, I know Aurelis would be proud to have such a soldier as you fighting for her.”   
  
“Perhaps,” Elice chuckled. “Marchioness Redpeak, would you care to dance?”   
  
She offered her hand. Marchioness Redpeak looked at it with interest, then to her husband. She pushed the glass into his hands, which he didn’t fight, and took Elice’s.  
  
“I believe I would,” she decided.   
  
They took to the dance floor while the music played, a waltz that Elice didn’t know, but waltzes didn’t really vary that much from country to country, so she did fine. The Marchioness led, which Elice was perfectly happy with.   
  
“I’m curious,” Marchioness Redpeak murmured. “I’d think a dashing young woman like yourself wouldn’t be so interested in all of this nasty war business.”   
  
“Call it patriotism,” Elice replied. “I fight for Altea, Marchioness. When we were betrayed by Gra and my family was killed, _someone_ had to step up to lead the people.”   
  
“Admirable,” Marchioness Redpeak said. “It concerns me what King Jiol is up to. I recall he wasn’t always so reclusive. But hardly anyone’s seen hide or hair of him, especially ever since they closed the borders.”   
  
“He could be planning something,” Elice suggested. “You know, Aurelis and Gra are close, even by ship. The Artemis Sea is so narrow this far north. He could be planning an offensive on Aurelis very soon.”   
  
“Oh?” Marchioness Redpeak said, arching an eyebrow. “You think so?”   
  
Elice shrugged. “Mere speculation. But if it were me, I certainly wouldn’t risk it.”   
  
“I suppose I see your point,” the Marchioness admitted. “But what do you posit we do about it, Princess Elice?”   
  
Elice glanced around and dropped her voice. “The War Council, led by King Gules himself, have been planning an offensive to move to begin retaking Archanea. We’ll need a massive force of soldiers, especially if we’re to fortify Aurelis’s borders against possible retaliation.”   
  
The Marchioness nodded. “I understand, I understand,” she said. “Then I believe Engeram can lend its aid to the King. So long as our efforts do not go to waste— I realize one must make sacrifices during the game of war, but to lose Engeram’s soldiers gambling on the efforts of an unpopular king would be… strategically unwise.”   
  
_Do you always think of your soldiers’ lives as game pieces, Marchioness?_ Elice wanted to say. She didn’t, chiefly because such a thing would be spoken of, and the other Marquesses seemed more likely to listen to the word of one of their own rather than a rebel princess and her merry band of fools, thus undermining Nyna’s efforts. Suffice to say, Princess Nyna would _not_ be pleased by this.   
  
“Of course, Marchioness,” Elice agreed, carefully neutral. “But I’m pleased to hear your support. Your soldiers will be well-equipped and well-commanded. After all, it is Aurelis on the line.”   
  
The song ended. Elice hadn’t even noticed all the eyes on her and Marchioness Redpeak until the Marchioness beamed, gracefully accepting the awe and light applause at the performance that Elice hadn’t been aware of.   
  
“Thank you for the dance, Princess Elice,” Marchioness Redpeak said. “Well, I shan’t take up more of your time. Enjoy the party.”   
  
“You as well,” Elice replied, nodding politely. The Marchioness melted back into the crowd. Elice herself retreated to a lesser-populated corner of the ballroom, near the banquet table loaded with snacks. Elice recognizes most of them. She takes a few cubes of cheese and more salami than is probably needed, stacks them on a little wooden plate, and lingers near the wall, beside an alcove holding a sculpture of a bear.   
  
Getting food was a good idea, because Elice could just put something in her mouth whenever someone looked like they were trying to talk to her and they move on. She wished she’d known this trick when she was younger. It would’ve saved her a lot of embarrassment and awkward conversations, not to mention having to dance with various nobles’ sons. Which would’ve been to _their_ benefit, too— Elice had a reputation for being impossible to flirt with, because if anyone did anything she didn’t like, she would not hesitate to knee them in the crotch. (Nobody could really blame her for it. Her father had taught her hand-to-hand combat for at least partially this reason, though Elice had heard him promising her mother that no, teaching Elice how to go for the solar plexus had _not_ doomed her chances of finding a husband, just a _weak_ husband. Her mother hadn’t liked that very much.)  
  
Caeda waved to her and hurried over, a glass of red wine in her hands. Elice wondered who was letting her drink.  
  
“Elice!” Caeda said, leaning on the pillar next to her. “Some party, right? This wine is awful. I can’t believe they had to stick to gross Aurelian wine. Talysi wine blows this right out of the water. Do you want some?”  
  
Elice couldn't drink it even if she did. “No thanks,” she said. “Do you need something, Caeda?”  
  
“Oh, yeah,” Caeda said. “Don’t worry about Marquess Braunston. Katarina and I caught him in a side room with Marquess Blome’s daughter. Katarina was real quick about it and said we wouldn’t tell anyone so long as he agreed to support the league in mobilizing the army.” Caeda paused. “Huh. I _probably_ shouldn’t have said that.”  
  
“I’ll keep it secret,” Elice promised. “Why were you sneaking into a side room with Katarina?”  
  
“Nnnno reason,” Caeada lied. “Anyway, um. I’m gonna get more wine.”   
  
“You’ve probably had enough,” Elice guessed.   
  
“Oh, come on, I’ve only had _one_ glass,” Caeda rolled her eyes. “I’m not even tipsy. I’ve had more than this at my father’s parties before. The trick is to drink it slowly and have food with it. Like so.” She picked up a piece of salami from Elice’s plate and popped it in her mouth.   
  
“Oh, yeah,” Caeda remembered. She leaned in a little closer. “I saw ser Vyland tell something to Hardin and they both left in a big hurry. I think there’s something going on, but I don’t know what.”   
  
Elice frowned. “You think something’s happened?”  
  
“It had to have been something big,” Caeda guessed. “I’ve never seen Hardin power-walk before.”   
  
“Strange,” Elice mumbled. “Have you told Princess Nyna?”  
  
“She’s busy schmoozing Marquess Wylde,” Caeda said, waving a hand. “But I figure that either Hardin will take care of it or he’ll come back in to tell us that it’s like, a really big problem.”   
  
“Here’s hoping for the former,” Elice said.   
  
Caeda’s ears perked up when she heard the music start up again. She handed her glass to Elice before Elice could protest. “I gotta find Katarina,” she said. “She said she wanted to dance so I’m gonna invite her.”   
  
“Wait, your wine—“   
  
“You can have it, I’ll just get more,” Caeda insisted, hurrying back into the crowd and leaving Elice with a glass of wine that she most definitively did not want. Just looking at it made her queasy. She looked around to make sure nobody was watching, then subtly dumped the wine into a nearby potted plant and stuck the glass on the back corner of the snack table. No one would be the wiser.  
  
Well, at least Elice still had her cheese cubes.  
  
“Caeda’s never had wine before in her life,” Ogma said, materializing at her other side. “In case you were wondering. This is the first time she’s ever drank anything with alcohol in it.”   
  
Caeda frowned. “What, so she was lying to seem cool?”  
  
“No,” Ogma replied. He held a tankard of something in his hand. The sleeves of his dress uniform were pushed up. “She thinks she’s a connoiseur of Talysi wine. The truth is that she’s only ever been given grape juice.”  
  
Elice nodded slowly. “I see. That can’t _possibly_ go horribly wrong. Why is she drinking now? Aren’t you her bodyguard?”  
  
“A hangover will build character,” Ogma shrugged. “Besides, she’s sixteen. I doubt her tolerance is high enough to cause a serious problem— if she can choke down more than one glass, that is.”   
  
“I suppose that makes sense,” Elice admitted. “So, how are you finding the party?”  
  
Ogma grimaced.  
  
“Yeah, me too,” Elice agreed.  
  
“Nobility and I, with the exception of Caeda and King Mostyn, have never gotten along,” Ogma admitted. “But I don’t mind so much. At the very least, it means nobody gives me a second look.”  
  
“I wish I could say the same,” Elice mumbled. “It’s driving me crazy, Ogma. They don’t see the soldiers as people, just as— as _pieces_. Marchioness Redpeak said she was hesitant about agreeing with me because it’d be “gambling on the efforts of an unpopular king” and “strategically unwise.” Like this is all some sort of game.”   
  
Ogma nodded sympathetically. “It’s kind of incredible, isn’t it?”  
  
Elice snorted. “Faith in humanity was a mistake.”  
  
Ogma nodded. For a moment Elice just stuck her hands in her pockets and leaned against a pillar, watching the people chatter and socialize. Marth would be good to have here. The longer the party went on, the more Elice missed him.  
  
“You want a drink?” Ogma asked. “Wine?”  
  
Elice shook her head. “I don’t drink.”  
  
Ogma chuckled. “Yeah, that’s a good plan.” He took a swig from whatever was in his tankard.   
  
Elice sighed. “I wish my brother were here,” she mumbled. “He was the charming one. Imagine Caeda, but softer.”   
  
Ogma blinked. “Wow.”  
  
“Yeah, I shudder to think what’ll happen when they meet,” Elice admitted, chuckling humorlessly.   
  
Ogma hummed. “You know we _are_ going to get to him,” he says. “No matter how long it takes.”   
  
“It’s probably a fool’s errand,” Elice snorted. “Walking into Khaedin expecting to perform some rescue mission. I was stupid to think it.”   
  
“Maybe, but,” Ogma shrugged. “I’ll still back you up, Princess Elice. Any day of the week.”  
  
“You knightly types are all the same,” Elice teased, though there was a note of sincerity in her voice. “And why have you decided I’m worth following in the first place?”   
  
“I’d rather fight for you than for one of them,” Ogma replied, nodding to the nobles. “You’re out there with us, leading from the front. Any royal that just thought of soldiers as pawns wouldn’t do that. You believe in your cause and you’ll do anything to fulfill it. That’s worth admiring, your highness. You know I'll keep telling you this as long as you keep doubting it.”   
  
Elice looked at the smooth, tightly-laid planks of the ballroom floor. She was quiet for a good, long time. It was difficult enough to think about the fact that she was really doing this— really leading an army, really bearing the symbol of hope for the people of the continent, really preparing to charge into enemy territory for her brother. That wasn’t to say she regretted committing to it. She was still prepared to _do_ it. It was just strange to think about the fact that she actually _was_ , and more than that, that people would follow her just because of her mule-headedness and refusal to sit in the back and let people die for her.   
  
She didn’t get the chance to reply to Ogma, though. Nyna pushed through the crowd and made a beeline for Elice, her expression stoic but urgent.   
  
“Princess Elice,” she whispered. “There’s a situation. Hardin needs us present in the base as soon as possible.”  
  
When Nyna said as soon as possible, Elice figured she meant now. “I’ll talk to you later, Ogma,” she said, then hurried off with Nyna, back through the ballroom.  
  
“So what’s such a big issue that Hardin needs us this urgently?” Elice asked as they hurried through the halls. “What’s going on?”  
  
“According to ser Roshea, a soldier from the Empire found her way into the city, turned up at the castle, and asked to speak with you, specifically,” Nyna explained. “She claims she has a message from the Red Dragoon.”   
  
“The same Red Dragoon that smashed my face in?” Elice repeated. “That Red Dragoon?”  
  
“Presumably so,” Nyna replied. “We’re going to have to put a hold on charming the nobles until we deal with this.”   
  
“I hope this isn’t some kind of trap,” Elice muttered. “I’d like my face to stay intact, personally. Though I suppose it can’t look any worse.”   
  
Nyna smiled wryly. “Right, of course, _that’s_ our main issue,” she said. “Forget the matter that a soldier from the Empire got all the way to Dorran undetected.”   
  
“I’m just keeping my priorities straight,” Elice shrugged.  
  
“Well, I hope you can be serious for long enough to find out what exactly she wants,” Nyna replied. “Because this could have bigger consequences than you know, Princess Elice.”   
  
Elice grimaced. “Right. No pressure or anything.”  
  
Hardin’s soldiers were keeping this supposed intruder in the soldiers’ dining hall. Elice heard talking as she approached the door— Hardin’s voice, and another she didn’t recognize. Ryan and Rickard, no doubt forbidden from eavesdropping but trying their hardest to anyway, were peeking around the arch from the other side. Ryan looked up, wide-eyed, when he saw Elice and Nyna and absolutely failed at acting natural, looking more like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.   
  
“I thought Father Wrys was keeping an eye on you two,” Elice said.   
  
“He fell asleep,” Rickard protested. “I got bored! I didn’t tell _Ryan_ to follow me ‘round anywhere, but he did anyway. Ain’t my fault.”  
  
“Liar,” Ryan huffed. “You said you were gonna steal some sweets from the banquet hall an’ then you didn’t.”  
  
“Boys,” Nyna said sternly. Both of them straightened up. “Go back to the common room with Father Wrys and _do not leave_ until one of us returns, is that clear?”  
  
“Yes, Princess Nyna,” the boys chorused. They slunk back off, though Elice doubted even Nyna’s orders could keep them away from this New Interesting Event that was going on.   
  
“Ah, Princess Nyna, Princess Elice,” Hardin called. “You made it. And quicker than I’d have thought.”   
  
“With something like this, I wouldn’t think to dawdle,” Nyna replied. Elice followed her into the dining hall, where the Empire soldier was. She had her hands bound behind her back and two of Hardin’s soldiers watching her every move, but didn’t seem like she was even bothering to struggle. She wore black and gold, the colors of Dolhr. She also couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen.   
  
Hardin nodded to her. “ _Supposedly_ , she has a message, but has refused to share it unless you’re here, Princess Elice.”   
  
“I know my orders,” the soldier replied. “I was told to tell this to Princess Elice. How was _I_ to know you would honor your word, huh?”  
  
Hardin ignored her. “Reportedly, she tried to seduce Wolf into letting her into the castle.”   
  
Elice glanced to Wolf. His expression didn’t change, but he looked visibly Done With This Bullshit. It was the expression of a stone-cold gay man who had put up with a teenage girl’s series of failed attempts to get her way by showing him her tits.  
  
The soldier shrugged. “I use what I have.”   
  
“Right, anyway,” Nyna decided. “Moving right along. Why Princess Elice specifically?”  
  
“She’s who Commander Drakon told me to give the message to,” the soldier said. She looked at Elice. “That’s you, right?”   
  
“It is,” Elice replied. “What’s your name, soldier?”  
  
“Skylark,” the soldier said. “And I’ve got a message for you from Princess Minerva Drakon of Macedon.”


	12. Act 1: The League- Chapter 12: Concerning Macedon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“We can’t simply split the army and go chase this lead when we have another focus— taking back Archanea,” Nyna insisted. “We need to focus on one thing at a time.”_
> 
> _Hardin rubbed his chin. “Princess Nyna, I do hear what you’re saying,” he said. “But I agree with Elice that, trap or no, this is a lead worth pursuing.”_
> 
> _Nyna rubbed at her temples like this whole thing was giving her a headache._
> 
> New information, and a new plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is mostly just people talking and some exposition for bros of mine who don't play archanea but want gay shit. apologies in advance

Hardin and Nyna exchanged glances.  
  
“What does Macedon want of us?” Hardin asked, furrowing his brow and folding his arms.  
  
“Not Macedon,” Skylark insisted. “Just the Commander. She obviously couldn’t be here to tell you herself, so I’m here instead.”  
  
Nyna pursed her lips, but didn’t say anything. She glanced to Elice, as if allowing her to ask the questions. Elice wasn’t sure if that was a vote of confidence or just Nyna refusing to be involved in certain failure.  
  
“We’ll hear what you have to say,” Hardin said. “Caeda should be back with the girls right about…” Right as he said that, Caeda hurried into the room with Katarina and Clarisse behind her. Katarina hiked up her shoulders and clutched her ledger tighter over her chest, looking anywhere but at anyone’s face, while Clarisse sneered in Skylark’s direction (which seemed to just be her way of saying hello), grabbed a chair, and leaned back in it with her feet on another table in a fantastic display of how little she cared.  
  
“I brought Katarina and Clarisse,” Caeda said, just in case it wasn’t clear. Her eyes went to Skylark in the chair. “That’s the enemy soldier? But she’s just a kid.”  
  
Skylark snorted. “I could say the same about _you_ , princess.”  
  
Caeda straightened. “I am the _princess_ of _Talys_ ,” she said matter-of-factly. “I am _not_ a child, and I do not appreciate being spoken to as if I’m one by a soldier _my_ age!”  
  
“Oh, yeah?” Skylark asked. “How old are you?”  
  
“Sixteen,” Caeda said proudly.  
  
Skylark grinned. “I’m seventeen. Case closed.”  
  
Hardin cleared his throat pointedly. “Moving right along.”  
  
“Alright, Skylark,” Elice said, pulling up a chair and sitting in it backwards, resting her arms on the back. “Now that we’re all here, give me the message.”  
  
Skylark took a breath. “Let me start at the beginning. I’m from Macedon, as you might’ve guessed, so yes, true, I am _technically_ an enemy soldier. I’m part of Macedon’s order of pegasus knights— the Whitewings. We were only formed a couple years back, by the princess herself. Really, I like to think of myself as less a soldier of Macedon and more a Whitewing, but I digress.  
  
“In 598, six years ago, our previous king died. The only witness was his son, our current king. King Michalis said that it was an Archanean assassin who did it, and so he got the country to nearly unanimously ally with Dolhr in their building effort to conquer Archanea. For a while it worked out great, since Dolhr provided Macedon with whatever it needed to keep its people healthy and thriving, but once the war started, Dolhr started to take soldiers from Macedon’s military. And there were a lot of them, since Macedon’s always been a military nation, but you can imagine that the people didn’t like this very much.  
  
“So, I wasn’t here for this, so I don’t know _exactly_ what happened, but something changed about three years back, when he let Princess Maria be taken into Dolhrian custody, spouting stuff about it helping the war effort, but really, that’s bull, and I can tell plain as day that he’s using this as a way to control the Commander.  
  
“Unfortunately, it worked. The King cracked down on recruitment into the army and conscripted everyone healthy enough to participate— if you were at least fourteen and could lift a pitchfork, you were in. And the Commander hasn’t been able to do a single thing about it— she has to follow his orders and kill whatever people he asks her to. It’s a whole chain of good people following bad orders, and the Commander is awful tired of it.  
  
“So, that’s why I’m here: because Commander Drakon needs you folks to rescue Princess Maria. Then the whole Whitewing order and everyone still loyal to her over the King— though I don’t know how many people that _is_ — are yours to command.”  
  
Skylark finished with a breath in. “And that’s the whole story,” she said. “Satisfied?”  
  
Elice took a moment to absorb it all. It did explain why the Red Dragoon hadn’t killed her, and why Lena, who supposedly knew her, had said that she didn’t want to fight her in the first place. A hostage situation would handily explain all of that.  
  
“What an awful thing for a king to do,” Hardin remarked.  
  
“We should follow up on this,” Elice suggested. “If what Skylark says is true and part of Macedon will be our ally if we rescue Princess Maria, then we’ll have made an especially powerful ally of the Red Dragoon. You know, the woman who’s made a habit of smacking me around like a golf ball?”  
  
Skylark coughed. “She also told me to tell you she’s sorry about that,” she said. “But you’ve recovered real well from the last time I saw you! You make the crooked nose work. It’s a real dashing kind of look.”  
  
“So I’ve been told,” Elice said dryly.  
  
“Princess Elice, this could well be a trap,” Nyna said. “Are you really going to just take this _child_ at her word?”  
  
“I don’t know, Princess Nyna,” Elice replied. “ _Maybe_ I shouldn’t. _Maybe_ this child who traveled hundreds of miles and through a closed border tightly patrolled by heavily armed soldiers to deliver a message that, if followed up on, could cripple Macedon’s forces— and strike a major blow to the Dolhrian Empire— is actually _lying_ about all of that so we’ll fall for a trap.”  
  
Nyna set her lips in a very firm line. “That is… a fair point,” she said tightly. “But we cannot ignore the _possibility_.”  
  
“Alright, sure,” Elice shrugged. “So what would _you_ have us do? Wait it out and see if it goes away?”  
  
“What _I_ would have us do,” Nyna repeated. “Is to find information first. If we free Pales, then I can try to contact the network of spies based there—“  
  
“That’ll take ages,” Elice protested. “And just how heavily fortified is Pales going to be? It’s currently under enemy occupation. If we try to lay siege to that city, they’re going to use everything at their disposal to snuff us out.”  
  
“Elice has a point,” Hardin admitted. “Pales is a citadel of the ages. There’s a reason they called it the Millennium Palace.”  
  
Nyna clenched her hands very tightly around the back of a chair. Her nail beds had started to turn blue— ice magic, barely kept at bay by years of training. ( _Fire and ice,_ Elice thought with mild amusement. No wonder they kept butting heads.)  
  
“We can’t simply split the army and go chase this lead when we have another focus— taking back Archanea,” Nyna insisted. “We _need_ to focus on one thing at a time.”  
  
Hardin rubbed his chin. “Princess Nyna, I do hear what you’re saying,” he said. “But I agree with Elice that, trap or no, this is a lead worth pursuing.”  
  
Nyna rubbed at her temples like this whole thing was giving her a headache. Caeda idly drummed her fingers on the tabletop, only half-listening, and Clarisse had taken out a stiletto and was spinning it around her fingers, making it look like she wasn’t listening when she was in fact listening closely. Katarina, on the other hand, was visibly hanging on to every word, and looked like she wanted to contribute. Elice threw her a bone.  
  
She nodded to Katarina. “What do you think?” she asked.  
  
Everyone quieted. Katarina looked down and cleared her throat quietly. “Um,” she began, very softly. “Maybe we _can_ … do both?”  
  
Hardin frowned. “Could you explain how, Katarina?”  
  
“Well, like this,” Katarina said. “It’d depend on where Princess Maria is being held, specifically. Um, do you know?”  
  
Skylark shrugged. “Last I heard? Somewhere in Archanea. It used to be a fortress in the Macedonian mountains, but they moved her when Archanea fell. I’d assume some castle or somewhere secure.”  
  
“Right, so,” Katarina continued. “If she’s in Archanea, then we can take the whole might of the army to the border and push through. Then once we’ve breached the border, we can split our forces.”  
  
“We already have such a small force, and you would divide it by half?” Nyna repeated.  
  
Katarina shook her head. “Not by half. Someone can lead the Aurelian troops while someone else leads a smaller force towards where Princess Maria is being held. Assuming we find out for sure where that is.”  
  
“I think that’s a great idea,” Caeda said. Katarina smiled shyly, ducking her head at the praise. “Once we break the enemy line, I can scout for where they might be holding her.”  
  
“They’d shoot you right down,” Skylark replied. “Wearing those colors? You’d be target practice.”  
  
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Elice decided. “But I say that sounds like a solid plan.”  
  
“As do I,” Hardin agreed, nodding proudly. “Princess Nyna?”  
  
Princess Nyna had let go of the back of the chair and begun pacing, the gears in her head turning at mach speed— it was a good sign that she was thinking about this plan instead of digging her heels in on a bad idea. She finally stopped, set her hands back on the back of the chair, and took a breath.  
  
“The leader of this smaller force faces a very dangerous task,” she said. “Delving into enemy territory, moving quickly to avoid being overwhelmed by Empire forces— it would take a leader in good enough health to lead from the front, not to mention one with solid skill, reckless bravery, and an ability to think on their feet…”  
  
She was looking right at Elice. Elice met her gaze with a proud smirk.  
  
“Alright, well,” Elice decided, standing up and cracking her neck. “I guess I’d better brief my troops about it, hadn’t I? Polish my armor and all that.”  
  
“Princess Elice, are you sure?” Hardin asked. “This isn’t something to be taken lightly. It’s a weighty task.”  
  
“Then I suppose I’d better start working out,” Elice replied. “I’m being serious, Prince Hardin. And, honestly, if I’m to be the symbol of hope for the Archanean people, bearing one of their historical icons and all, I’d rather do it while I’m pushing towards a goal that’ll get something done.”  
  
Skylark snorted. “You’re fuckin’ crazy,” she said. “It’s not gonna be a walk in the park, breaking through Empire lines. They’re vicious. I should know!”  
  
“Well, no one else is going to do it,” Elice shrugged. “I might as well.”  
  
Elice couldn’t quite place how Nyna looked at her then, but if she wasn’t mistaken, it was almost approval.  
  
“Then I say it’s settled,” Hardin decided. “Once we have the approval of the Marquesses, I’ll lead the larger body of troops towards Pales and we’ll make it official. The Empire won’t know what hit them!”  
  
“Great,” Nyna nodded. “Now what do we do about _her?”_  
  
Everyone looked at Skylark, who looked around and shrugged. “I said my bit,” she said. “You can do what you have to with me. I mean, if you’re asking me, I’d certainly _like_ to not be a prisoner, but I can’t say I didn’t _expect_ to be one, what with it being a war and all.”  
  
“We can’t just let her go,” Nyna said. “I don’t trust her.”  
  
“That’s fair,” Skylark admitted.  
  
“Well, sure, but I don’t feel right keeping a kid chained up in a dungeon,” Elice replied. “I’m not saying we just let her go free, but…”  
  
“Well, then, we’ll have someone on babysitting duty,” Hardin decided. “Like… probation. How’s that sound to you, Skylark?”  
  
“Beats the dungeon,” Skylark shrugged. “And hey, if _all_ of your tacticians are as cute as this one, maybe I’ll like it here.” She winked at Katarina, who flushed to the tips of her ears and buried her face in her book.  
  
Clarisse glared at her. “Watch your mouth, Empire trash,” she growled. “That’s my _sister_ you’re talking about.”  
  
Skylark raised her eyebrows, clearly intrigued. “Oh yeah? Maybe _you’re_ more my type, then. I like a girl with some fire in her.”  
  
Clarisse blinked like she’d walked into a glass door. “What.”  
  
“Sedgar, Wolf,” Hardin said. His two soldiers looked up, giving him their full attention. “Untie her, but don’t let her out of your sight. I think it’s best if she stays in the soldiers’ quarters— we don’t need the nobles or the civilians catching sight of her.”  
  
“Understood,” Sedgar nodded. Wolf grimaced and sighed, clearly resigned to his fate.  
  
“In the meantime,” Nyna decided. “We’re not finished with the appeals. With me, Princess Elice.”  
  
“As you wish,” Elice drawled. They left the dining hall, headed back towards the ballroom. Elice caught a glimpse of Ryan and Rickard scampering away out of the corner of her eye, but didn’t say anything.  
  
“You know,” she said to Nyna. “Aren’t I technically your date to this gala?”  
  
“You’re my _plus one_ ,” Nyna insisted. “There’s a difference.”  
  
“Nah, there isn’t. Anyway, so, as your date, don’t I owe you a dance?” Elice teased. “That is how these things go, right?”  
  
“Well, can you dance?” Nyna replied. “I don’t want you to embarrass me.”  
  
“Oh, ye of little faith,” Elice said in mock hurt. “I’m just as royal as you. I can’t _not_ know how to dance. I’ll even lead.”  
  
“No, you won’t,” Nyna insisted. “I’ll lead.”  
  
“Are you sure? I’m pretty good at leading.”  
  
“Oh, are you?” Nyna whirled around, stopping Elice in her tracks. She had a crafty smile playing across her face, something competitive sparkling in her eyes— she had gray eyes, Elice noticed, almost silvery, glittering with intelligence and willpower and spirit. Elice wondered how she hadn’t noticed before— maybe it was because they hadn’t ever stood this close.  
  
Elice quirked an eyebrow. “ _I_ certainly think so,” she replied.  
  
“Why don’t you prove it to me in the ballroom?” Nyna replied. “If you impress me enough, _maybe_ I’ll let you lead. Maybe.”  
  
Elice chuckled. “Why, Princess Nyna,” she replied. “I’d be a fool to say no.”


	13. Act 1: The League- Chapter 13: Southbound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Elice wasn’t looking at her, which Nyna was not making particularly easy. She had the sort of gravitas that was impossible to ignore, no matter how hard Elice tried to focus on the road ahead. Elice hated it. She wasn’t so self-centered as to think that Nyna was doing all of this specifically to spite her, but Elice felt spited anyway._
> 
> The march to free Archanea begins with a bang.

The Aurelian highlands felt like a very different place now that Aurelis was no longer inches away from being conquered. Which kind of made sense, given the kind of effect a siege will have on a place. The highways were open again, wide terraced roadways winding through the hills and kept in and steady by thick concrete terrace walls. Traffic once again moved freely along them, both bound for Dorran and for other marches in Aurelis. They were all paved in fine gravel on top of the packed earth for traction, which crunched beneath wheel and foot and hoof all the same and eliminated any hope of navigating the highway silently— which was by design, as the sounds of gravel would alert the highway watchguards. Hardin had spoken, very proudly and at great length, to Elice about the basin’s road system. The watchtowers and the guards that manned them served multiple purposes: as watchtowers in the event of a disaster, as landmarks, as depots for miners, as rest stops for travelers or couriers, and, based on which colors they flew beneath Aurelis’ national flag, signs of the borders of the marches were laid out. It was quite honorable to be a watchguard, and most certainly never boring.  
  
When the Midsummer Fair came to an end, the visitors who came to Dorran for the festivities left along these same roads, back into other corners of Aurelis. The Marquesses and their entourages had ridden their carriages down the highways on their way home. There was something humbling, traveling these roads, in the transitory nature of all who walked along them. Perhaps it was the fact that every individual, status be damned, was just another traveler, an impermanent entity passing through a space that was not theirs. Perhaps it was the fact that the road would more than likely remain, or at least hints of it would, long after the people who built it had been lost to history. Perhaps it was the idea that all of civilization was built upon such roads, routes that allowed trade, commerce, connection across wide distances— and is such a thing not the keystone of society, of humanity at large, that there exists something that connects everyone to everyone else, a force forming a mesh woven into the facbric of culture that connects it all to a greater, stronger whole?  
  
Philosophy notwithstanding, roads are meant to be traveled by anyone who needs them, and this meant the Aurelian army, now rallied beneath the nation’s standard, would march along them in formation, armed and trained and regimented, all united under the command of their own Prince Hardin. So it’d been decided— Hardin would lead the army, and Elice would take a smaller force, as small as possible to maximize speed and minimize the risk of being detected, through a weak point in the Empire’s border defenses and lead them through Archanea to rescue Macedon’s youngest princess.  
  
There had been much debate on who Elice would bring. She had quite a few people rallied to her cause, and _her_ cause specifically, but too big a force would be too slow to move. Elice had to choose carefully, and her resulting team had to be capable, trustworthy, and have someone to cover any task that needed doing.  
  
Most of her team fit all those categories. She had Jagen, Cain, Abel, Draug, and Gordin, who she couldn’t have left behind if she tried. She had Malledeus and Lena for healing. Julian had made it very clear that he went where Lena went, and anyway, he was pretty good with a dagger and could pick any locks they needed opened, which could come in handy. Rickard went where Julian went, but given that he was completely useless, Elice was only letting him along out of obligation. She also, admittedly, would’ve preferred that Caeda stay with Hardin, where it was less likely she’d see combat and thus would be safer, but Caeda vehemetly disagreed and Elice had eventually caved. And Ogma went where Caeda went, which Elice was actually kind of happy about. She had Skylark because her knowledge of the Empire would be vital, but no one was going to hand her a weapon any time soon. For a small team, this was a pretty good spread. Elice had been completely prepared to leave Dorran with just those twelve, but that was not how it went.  
  
Elice had _not_ anticipated Princess Nyna.  
  
She’d left no room for argument, and in fact only told Elice that she was coming along when Elice was about to lead her army out of the city, already packed and prepared for the march. She also hadn’t waited for any approval from Elice, very effectively cutting off any of Elice’s protests before she could even make them. Loathe as Elice was to admit it, Nyna had outplayed her.  
  
It didn’t make it any easier that Nyna was walking within arm’s reach, keeping pace with no issues and staying focused on the road ahead like this had been the plan all along. She hadn’t complained at all thus far, and in fact looked more like she was daring someone to _accuse_ her of complaining. She’d traded her fine, floor-length gowns for well-cut traveling trousers, a trimmed jacket buttoned up to her throat, and a very warm-looking cloak with a hood. Her walking boots were clearly brand-new and tailored specifically for the trip. They probably pinched, like all new boots did, but Elice doubted Nyna was going to say anything if they did, just because she was so infuriatingly stoic and stubborn.  
  
Elice wasn’t looking at her, which Nyna was not making particularly easy. She had the sort of gravitas that was impossible to ignore, no matter how hard Elice tried to focus on the road ahead. Elice hated it. She wasn’t so self-centered as to think that Nyna was doing all of this specifically to spite her, but Elice felt spited anyway.  
  
Overhead, Caeda kept an eye on the horizon, gliding on warm air currents to keep pace with the rest of the group. It was good weather for it— muggy, but clear, with bright sunshine and an occasional short breeze granting a reprieve from the humidity. It was less good weather for walking, because with humidity came bugs. The forests on the border of Aurelis and Archanea were damp and swampy, lowlands laced with creeks and streams that all fed into the river. They were off the main roads, following a faint path that wound around the slippery mud pits and deceptively deep ponds in the hopes of being more difficult to see coming. Nobody was going to mistake them for merchants or anything, but they’d traded nation colors for civilian browns and grays and left behind anything with a coat of arms— including the Brazier, which Elice had tucked into her pack. In its place was an iron buckler that’d probably be better for smashing noses than it would be for substantial protection.  
  
Tearing her eyes away from Nyna, Elice spotted Skylark watching Caeda glide with something like sorrow in her gaze, though she turned her eyes back to the road when she caught a glimpse of Elice looking at her. Elice slowed her pace just a bit to walk next to Skylark. Skylark nodded to her.  
  
“I appreciate you agreeing to help us get through the enemy line,” Elice said. “We’ll need it.”  
  
Skylark shrugged. “No skin off my back, and it’s better than getting stuck in some dungeon. So, your ladyship, or whatever,” Skylark added, keeping pace with Elice. “Mind if I ask you something?”  
  
“That is the _princess_ of _Altea_ ,” Jagen ground out.  
  
“Well that doesn’t mean shit in Macedon, old man,” Skylark replied. “Anyway, what’s with bringing along Miss Congeniality? Figured she’d be with the other upper-crusts, safe behind castle walls.”  
  
Elice shrugs. “I think she’s here to make sure I don’t disappoint her.”  
  
Skylark nodded in understanding. Foolishly, Elice thought that was the end of the conversation, at least until Skylark spoke again.  
  
“So, how long have you been dating?” she said casually. Elice stumbled mid-step.  
  
“Excuse me?” she managed.  
  
Skylark was examining her nail beds. “You heard me.”  
  
“I don’t know if I did, actually—”  
  
“I am _here_ ,” Nyna said pointedly. “Because I am not content with sitting on the sidelines while my people suffer. I may not be able to swing a sword or lead a charge, but Archanea’s people must know that at least _one_ member of the royal family still lives. So, ser Skylark, while I will not demand your reverence, I would at _least_ request some level of decorum while in my presence.”  
  
Skylark straightened up. “Yes, ma’am. Your highness. Ma’am.”  
  
Nyna seemed satisfied. “Anyway,” she said. “I also have a few allies still in Archanea, last I heard, before Dolhr closed all the borders. I think it would be useful to have a contact that we can trust, and I doubt they’ll believe you much if you appear to them without me there.”  
  
“Finding new allies once we’re through would be wise,” Malledeus added from the back of Jagen’s horse. “Especially allies who have been living in Archanea and thus know the state.”  
  
“Precisely,” Nyna agreed. “My friend Jeorge was somewhere in the hills of Samsooth, at last contact, so hopefully word will reach his ears sometime soon.”  
  
“If you need a rumor to reach allied ears but not enemy ears, I can help with that,” Julian volunteered. “Ricky and I can mention a few things about Archanea’s Champion returning to stop the Empire and such. It’s no spy network, but.” He shrugged. Rickard mirrored it.  
  
“It’s real, real important, to do, Jules says,” Rickard added, trotting up beside Elice. “Betcha we could do more with a little somethin’ to sweeten the deal. Know what I’m sayin,’ princess?” He rubbed his two forefingers and his thumb together and winked.  
  
Julian rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Look, Ricky, good form, bad mark. We’ve talked about this.”  
  
“Tell you what, Rickard,” Elice decided. “I’ll pay you. But,” she said, before he could get too excited. “I’ll pay you after you get the job done. Sound fair?”  
  
Rickard folded his arms and sighed. “You drive a hard bargain. But yeah, fair.”  
  
Caeda pulled her pegasus down from the skies, joining the rest of the team at ground level. “We’re right on the border,” she said. “I don’t see any encampments nearby, but we should be careful.”  
  
“Princess Caeda is right,” Jagen agreed. “I don’t like how quiet it’s been. I would’ve expected to have at least run across a patrol group.”  
  
“Careful, Jagen,” Elice said. “Keep talking like that, and you’ll jinx us.”  
  
An uneasy few moments passed where the entire party waited to see if Jagen did jinx them.  
  
When nothing happened, Elice let out her breath. “Or maybe we’re just lucky.”  
  
Ogma hummed. “I don’t buy it,” he said. “Watch, something’s going to happen right… about…”  
  
“Archers!” Caeda shouted. She yanked her reins back. Her pegasus shot into the sky. A flurry of arrows embedded themselves in the mud. The road erupted into chaos.  
  
Elice landed in the mud with a heavy grunt. She rolled with the impact and came up standing ankle-deep in a puddle of swamp water. Soldiers in gold and black charged from the trees, lance tips pointed to attack. One got an arrow to the forehead and dropped like a stone. Another two made the mistake of charging Jagen and ended up skewered together on the shaft of a lance. Another was smarter and ran for Elice instead. She deflected the lunge with her buckler, stabbed him in the armpit with her knife, and kicked him into the nearest puddle.  
  
“They’re shooting from the trees!” Gordin shouted. A split second later, an enemy soldier screamed and then fell from the branches of a tree with an arrow in his face. Elice grimaced. What a way to go.  
  
“Oh, fuck _off_ ,” Skylark groaned. She picked up a rock and chucked it like a shot put at one of the archers. He yelped and fell to the ground, startled but very much alive. Elice whacked him in the face with her buckler with a wet crunch and kicked him towards Ogma, who speared him from behind.  
  
Elice nodded to him. “Nice one,” she said.  
  
“Back at you,” he replied.  
  
Somewhere behind Elice, Nyna yelped. Elice whirled and sank her dagger into another Dolhrian soldier’s elbow. Blood sprayed when she yanked it back out. Nyna was unharmed, but visibly shaken.  
  
“You should fall back to safety with Lena and Malledeus,” Elice told her. “No one wants you getting hurt.”  
  
Nyna cleared her throat and straightened her collar. “I can assure you, I’m _far_ from helpless, Princess Elice,” she replied. Her eyes widened at something behind Elice. She held up her hand and shot out a beam of blinding light, frying the soldier about to get Elice from behind.  
  
Elice held up her hands. “Alright, fair.”  
  
The Dolhrian soldiers had figured out that Skylark, unarmed, was the easiest target. One lunged at her with a blade. She sidestepped it, kneed him in the crotch, and slammed her forehead into his face. It was too bad that wasn’t enough to knock him down. He swung wide with his sword and just barely missed taking her head off, had she not ducked. His blade stuck a few inches deep into the trunk of a tree.  
  
He grunted, trying to free it, which gave Elice the seconds she needed to put her dagger through his ribs and shove him into one of his buddies, knocking them both into a pond. She pulled Skylark to her feet.  
  
Skylark looked at her. “Thanks,” she said.  
  
“Don’t mention it,” Elice replied. “Can you fight with a weapon?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Here.” Elice pried a lance off a dead soldier and tossed it to Skylark. “I’m trusting you. Don’t make me regret it.”  
  
Skylark grinned and saluted. A half-second later, she’d swung it around and slammed the side of the tip into an approaching Dolhrian’s helm hard enough to dent it and probably bash in his skull. Caeda swooped down from the sky and ran him through with her spear, pulling it along by the chain and dragging him across the ground for several feet before the spear wrenched itself back out of his ribcage and Caeda yanked it back into her hand.  
  
“Nice save!” Elice shouted. Caeda yelled victoriously, hoisting her spear into the air.  
  
Nyna whispered a spell under her breath and sent discs of light hurtling towards the tree line. The light flitted around the shadows until it slammed into the next line of charging soldiers. They crumpled onto the ground, definitely wounded, maybe dead. There were no more advancing but Elice heard the twang of a bow string and saw a streak out of the corner of her eye and then blood, and it’s not a lot but Elice’s breath still hitched itself on its way out of her lungs— battles are full of blood, but Elice didn’t think she’d ever shake seeing wine spilled on her bedsheets.  
  
“Princess Nyna!” Jagen shouted.  
  
“It’s fine,” Nyna insisted, gritting her teeth and clutching her shoulder. The arrow grazed her. Blood was dripping from between her fingers, not spurting. Gordin nailed the archer between the eyes the next second and there was no more immediate danger, at least, but that didn’t make it any less dangerous.  
  
She crouched next to Nyna. Nyna had her jaw clenched tight, sweat beading on her brow.  
  
“It's no mere paper cut,” she said, while Lena hurried over and took out her staff. “But it only grazed me. I’ll live.”  
  
“You got lucky,” Elice told her.  
  
Nyna gives her a pained grin. “Why, Princess Elice, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were _worried_ about me.”  
  
“Well, it’d be hard to be your champion and save your country and all if you died before even getting back to it,” Elice replied. Her hands were shaking. She busied them by turning her dagger over in her hands.  
  
Lena tied the bandage tight around Nyna’s arm. “That’ll hold for now, until we can set up a camp,” she said. “A shame about your jacket, though.”  
  
Nyna glanced at the dark stain on her blue traveling jacket. “Ah, right. Well, jackets can be washed.”  
  
Elice got to her feet and held out her hand for Nyna. Nyna took it. Elice pulled her up and very purposefully did not think about holding for any longer than was necessary. “We need to end this now,” she decided. “Caeda! See anything?”  
  
Caeda circled back down to ground-level. “Not through these trees,” she said. “Sorry, Elice. If someone’s coming, I can’t see them.”  
  
“If we had some sort of distraction,” Malledeus mused. “Then we could slip by while they’re, well, distracted.”  
  
“How would we manage a distraction so big and disruptive that it catches the attention of an entire border patrol?” Jagen wondered.  
  
Elice rubbed her chin, the gears in her head turning. What did they have to use? They had their weapons, their armor, the bare minimum of supplies, and whatever personal belongings anyone had packed. Elice doubted that a signet ring or worry stone would be of much help.  
  
“I mean, it’s possible,” she said. “There has to be _something_. If we had a catapult, we could launch a projectile, maybe something that explodes on con—“  
  
Inspiration struck like a bolt of lightning. She patted around her belt for the pouch Hardin had given her the morning before the siege— the vials of Naga’s Breath.  
  
“I need a piece of string, good and long,” she ordered. “Anything, really, that I can use to tie something to something else. And Gordin, I need arrow.”  
  
Gordin tossed her an arrow and Lena provided a roll of medical tape. “Dare I ask why?”  
  
“One second.” Elice took out a little vial of magic fire, active and swirling inside its tiny glass prison, and taped it to the shaft of the arrow just beneath the head. Hardin had said enough agitation would make it explode, and as long as it didn’t while Gordin was aiming, they’d probably be fine.  
  
Nyna almost looked impressed. “The turns your mind takes,” she remarked.  
  
“I need you to shoot this towards the border,” Elice told Gordin, handing him the arrow. “And I need the rest of you ready to move as soon as he looses that arrow. I don’t know how far away it’ll land, but we don’t want to be anywhere near it.”  
  
“Somehow, I’m not surprised that your answer was explosives,” Jagen said.  
  
Elice grinned. “Hey, if it works.”  
  
Gordin drew his bow and fired. For a second, Elice watched the arrow go up, up, into the sky. Then she clapped her hands together. “Alright, people, move it! To the border!”  
  
Through the swamp they went, under tree branches and around deceptively deep ponds, and from one side, Elice heard a thunderous _BOOM_. A pillar of fire shot into the sky. Bright red smoke replaced it in a billowing mushroom cloud. A shockwave of heat rippled through the forest, brushing Elice’s hair back from her face.  
  
Abel whistled. “Aye, that’ll do ‘er.”  
  
“I _dearly_ hope you didn’t accidentally blow up a village or a historical monument, Princess Elice,” Nyna said tightly.  
  
“I aimed for the border,” Gordin promised. “I know I’m not the _best_ shot, but…”  
  
“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it,” Elice decided, patting Gordin’s shoulder. “Let’s go. No telling how long it’ll last.”  
  
By the time they’d crossed the shallow, marshy stream that fed into the valley separating Aurelis and Archanea and made it into the Archanean countryside, the cloud’s mostly dissipated. Elice shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted into the distance.  
  
“Well, looks like we didn’t even start any forest fires,” she said brightly. “I was worried about that.”  
  
Nyna rubbed her temples. “Is the word _subtlety_ in your vocabulary?”  
  
“I worked with what I had,” Elice shrugged. “Now let’s move. Princess Nyna, you said you had a friend in the hills? We should start there.”  
  
Nyna nodded, pulling her hood up over her head. “We must have caution from here on out,” she said. “Dolhrians may lurk behind every doorway. We must keep moving and keep our heads down until the time comes to free Pales.”  
  
“Her highness is right,” Jagen agreed. “This will be a long and constant march. I hope we are all equal to the task.” He said all, but he was looking at Elice.  
  
Elice turned back towards Archanea, looking out at the fields of wheat and rye and corn, pastures dotted with grazing cows and goats. It looked idyllic, as if there wasn’t even a war at all. She spotted little homesteads and small villages and the dirt roads connecting them, and in the distance, the famous Samsooth Hills rolled across the horizon. But Elice couldn’t be fooled by how peaceful it looked. Inside those towns and homes were people who thought their royal family was all dead and their country was at the mercy of the Dolhrian Empire— whatever that would end up meaning. But things would be different from here on out— now Elice was here, Brazier-bearer, Champion of Archanea, and no matter the odds, she would not fail.


	14. Act 1: The League- Chapter 14: Honor Among Travelers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Elice stood, the bar stool scraping against the floorboards. “Hey,” she said. “I’ve got a tip for you.”_
> 
> _The soldier raised an eyebrow. “And who, exactly, are you?”_
> 
> _Elice shrugged. “No one special,” she said. “Just a traveler.”_
> 
> A bar fight ends with two new-- or old-- friends.

Wars are not won by killing an entire population.   
  
At face value, such a claim is debatable. After all, it’s hardly unheard of in history and fiction alike that, when a war is waged, the attacking country will slaughter everything it sees; smash walls, mow down soldiers, chase down fleeing civilians, level entire cities, until the entire country is an uninhabitable wasteland. Such attackers are typically either legions of monsters with an insatiable taste for human flesh or else spearheaded by an individual that is as evil as possible and probably deeply, _deeply_ disturbed. But in practice, such a thing would be horribly impractical and ultimtely one-sided when a war, by its very nature, is an ongoing conflict between two parties, and as such it wouldn’t really be considered a war.  
  
When one king wages a war against another, total anihilation is not typically the goal. The goal is, instead, to _gain_ something— wealth, territory, spread of one’s religion, resources. Even with wars fought to prove a country’s military might or in revenge for some transgression, slaughtering the enemy’s entire populous wouldn’t have much point. For what value is a territory with nothing in it but burned villages, poisoned wells, salted fields, and bodies as far as the eye can see? It can’t surrender. It can’t negotiate a truce. It can’t even pay for the war waged on its soil. Total domination is, in that sense, a waste of time.  
  
No king with any amount of foresight _wants_ a war. Wars are long and expensive. Wars sap resources faster than they can be replenished. Wars frighten and anger the citizenry, weakening loyalty to the crown. Tactically speaking, war is a last resort.  
  
Now, not all kings think tactically. But even so, when a war does break out, both parties want it to end as soon as possible. A losing party wants to minimize the amount that they lose and a winning party wants to win quickly enough that their country doesn’t collapse while doing so. A smart king will know that killing more of a populous than is necessary to win the war will only weaken them in the long run. And so an attacker will take the quickest path to victory, marching in a straight line on their enemy’s center of power. They may terrorize a few villages to make a point, and fight against any enemy forces or angry civilians that attack them, but to detour severely from the war path once their point is made would take up valuable time and money.   
  
Medeus of Dolhr was a smart king. He wanted an empire that spanned the continent, and as such, straying from his path to needlessly raze a few villages would only lose him valuable citizens for said empire. As such, his conquest was quick and clean, leaving the vast majority of the lands he conquered untouched. In most places, life went on unchanged. Perhaps there were orphans and widows where there hadn’t been before, and perhaps there were fleeing refugees where there wouldn’t have been otherwise, but even so, life went on. People mourned their loved ones and pinned valuables to their undershirts in case they needed to make a sudden escape, but a farmer still tended to his crops, and a baker still baked his bread, and a priest still spoke the word of Naga to anyone who needed to hear it. Life for those out of the way of the war path didn’t change overmuch, even if their capital city was lost and their royal family dead or presumed so; even if soldiers in foreign colors patrolled their territory as a reminder that there was new management and protests would not be taken lightly.  
  
Archanea had lost. But her people still lived.  
  
Nestled at the northern end of the Samsooth Hill Valley, three days from the Aurelian border, the mining town of Bulford was no exception to the arcadian countryside painted across most of Archanea. Like most of the towns scattered across rural Archanea, it was of little to no consequence— it was several miles from the highway, housed a little over five thousand people and about half that many goats, and didn’t really have anything of note. As such, the Dolhrians had ignored it, which made it the perfect place to stop for supplies.  
  
It was a welcome break to stop for a bit. The march thus far had been quick and urgent, along narrow country roads connecting one tiny, inconsequential village to another, with as few stops as possible. Traveling as light and as quickly as they were, supplies had been running low anyway, so even Jagen admitted that they needed to stop, just for a bit. They’d been lucky thus far and had no more encounters with the Empire, but relying on luck was a luxury they couldn’t afford.   
  
Elice had gone into town with Julian and with the Brazier buckled onto her arm, where it should be, and hidden under her cloak. People needed to see her in order for the rumors to hold any weight, Julian had said. Jagen didn’t like it, but he’d reluctantly agreed, which said quite a bit— whether it was because he was starting to trust Elice’s plans more than he used to or because he’d been awake for the past day and a half and wasn’t quite thinking straight was entirely up in the air.  
  
Most towns this size had a network of shady back streets, and Bulford was no exception. Shoved up between the more above-board streets and the steep hillside, the back streets were narrow, dingy, and winding, and many of them were blocked altogether. The buildings loomed, with bases seemingly too small to hold up their upper floors, made of splintery, weather-beaten wood and pitted steel. Half of them had boarded windows and barred doors, but Elice could swear she saw movement through the gaps in the boards. Figures just as shady as the neighborhood lurked in the alleyways, tossing suspicious glances towards Elice and Julian as they made their way through the winding roads. Julian led the way— admittedly, he’d only been here a few times before, and that was a while back, but it was more than Elice had ever been, which was never.   
  
He stopped in front of a dumpy-looking tavern called _The Dusty Pick_. It may have been part of the gimmick that there was an old pickaxe firmly embedded in the wood above the door, but given the neighborhood, there was a real possibility that it wasn’t.   
  
“Alright, in and out,” Julian muttered to her. “We just need to be in here long enough for me to get a feel of how the rumors are spreading, and then we’ll get out.”   
  
“I’m gonna guess I’m paying for the ale?” Elice guessed.  
  
Julian grinned wryly. “Well, I won’t say no to a free drink on Altea’s royal tab.”  
  
Nobody gave them a second look when they entered the tavern. It was still pretty early in the day, long before happy hour, but there were a few people in the tavern anyway. The place was dim, lit by a few smoldering torches on the walls. The floorboards creaked and groaned anytime anyone moved. The place clearly had a theme going— like most taverns, it had an assortment of decorations on the walls in varying degrees of tackiness, and this one favored busted mining gear like shovels, pickaxes, and old lanterns with little cards below them that said things like _Here hangs the shovel that Bogarn Redeye used to club the Bulford tax collector in ’68_. A ratty wanted poster of Redeye himself and an old newspaper clipping hung next to that particular shovel. There was a dartboard on one wall that someone had pinned a picture of Emperor Medeus to, and every now and again someone would chuck a knife at it. Most of the knives had missed and stuck themselves into the wooden walls, but it was the thought that counted.  
  
“Oi, barkeep. Ale for me and my friend here,” Julian said, sliding into a seat at the bar and setting down a few coins. “Your finest. Or foulest, surprise me.”  
  
The bartender looked at him wryly. “ _The Dusty Pick_ is not responsible for any physical or emotional harm you experience at our establishment,” he said, pouring two mugs of something fizzy and foul-smelling that you could probably use as kerosene. He set the bottle down between them.   
  
Julian grinned and lifts his mug. “I’ll drink to that.”   
  
Elice took a drink, choking down about half of it and grimacing. The bar counter was slightly sticky. She looked around. An old drunkard with drool coming out of one side of his mouth snored with his face on the bar counter. The other patrons were a pair of night shift miners playing cards, a little group of scrawny teenage pickpockets, a few women with low-cut shirts and openly-carried knives, and a pair of travlers with hoods covering their faces.   
  
Julian nodded to the dartboard. “Not a fan of the Empire ‘round here?”  
  
The bartender snorted. “The _Marquess_ is, but he don’t speak for the whole of Samsooth. I don’t know a red-blooded Archanean this far out here that agrees with him.” He shook his head. “We keep our heads down, but I’d wager anything that there’s not a soul here who _wouldn’t_ toss an odd knife at the Emperor, should the opportunity arise.” As if on cue, someone chucked a knife at the dartboard. It stuck at a strange angle right into Emperor Medeus’s nostril. Elice quickly looked away and busied herself with drinking more ale.  
  
“I hear there’s some excitement at the border,” Julian said. “You hear about it yet?”  
  
The bartender looked at him warily. “I might’ve. What’s the news?”  
  
“I was in Crooked King a few days back,” Julian said. “There was this explosion across the river, an awful commotion. Drew every tin can in the area close to see what it was all about.”   
  
“Yeah,” the bartender nodded. “Yeah, I remember hearing something about that. Didn’t think much of it. Figured it was some mage testing fire tomes.”  
  
Julian leaned in. “Well, you didn’t hear it from _me_ ,” he mumbled. “But I overheard some of those soldiers talking, sayin’ it was the Aurelian Army come to push back against the Emperor. And,” he added. “There’s a new Brazier-bearer.”   
  
The bartender’s eyes widened, but he quickly shifted back to looking skeptical. “That’s an awful lot to overhear,” he said. “Who _are_ you, anyway?”   
  
Someone slammed the tavern door open. The din of activity stopped in its tracks. Out of the corner of her eye, Elice saw three soldiers in Dolhrian gold enter the tavern, shutting the door tight behind them. Two of them stood in front of the door, blocking the only accessible exit, and one slowly sauntered up to the bar like he owned the place, purposefully dragging the butt of his halberd across the creaking floorboards.   
  
He leaned on the bar two seats away from Elice. “Get me a mug,” he said to the bartender, setting a coin on the counter. “We’re not here for any trouble. I just want a drink.”  
  
The bartender narrowed his eyes, but didn’t say anything. He poured the soldier a mug of ale and set it down in front of him. The soldier took it and downed the whole thing in one long gulp, then set it down on the bar with a satisfied sigh.   
  
“Now _that_ hit the spot,” he said. “Fine establishment you have here, barkeep.”  
  
“Is there something else I can do for you gentlemen?” the bartender asked icily.   
  
“Matter of fact,” the soldier announced, standing up. “There is. We’ve been told that known rabblerouser and wanted criminal One-Armed Jeorge of the former Archanean house of Menedy has been spotted in this town. A fellow matching his description has been seen regularly entering and exiting _this very tavern_ , including entering just hours ago.”  
  
He paced slowly around the tavern. “We are well aware that all of you are some variety of deviant criminal scum, but we’re prepared to turn a blind eye if you turn over One-Armed Jeorge before I get impatient. But I warn you.” He grinned wickedly. “I’ve never been a patient man.”   
  
Nobody moved. The soldier knocked the butt of his halberd against table legs, making sharp clattering and scraping noises of wood against wood. With every sound, every crack, every creak, every scrape, Elice felt a little sand pour from an hourglass in her mind. She closed her eyes and took a long drink from what ale she had left, even as the torches slowly grew brighter and hotter.   
  
“Nobody?” the guard said incredulously. “Really? Well, never let it be said there’s no honor among thieves. I suppose I’ll just have to arrest _all_ of you and let the Samsooth Guard sort out the issue.” His affable pretense dropped. “ _One_ of you is wanted by Emperor Medeus for inciting rebellion and disrupting Empire operations. I’m not leaving until I find out who it is.”   
  
The sand ran out. Elice took a breath, cracked her neck, and made a very bad decision.   
  
She set her mug down on the bar counter with a very purposeful _clunk_ , loud enough that everyone looked her way. Julian had turned very pale.   
  
Elice stood, the bar stool scraping against the floorboards. “Hey,” she said. “I’ve got a tip for you.”  
  
The soldier raised an eyebrow. “And who, exactly, are you?”  
  
Elice shrugged. “No one special,” she said. “Just a traveler.”  
  
Julian tugged on her cloak. “This is a very, _very_ bad idea,” he whispered. The torches had grown substantially, casting the whole tavern in yellow-orange.   
  
“Don’t play games with me, boy,” the soldier growled. “I’ll have you hung for obstruction of the law. What, exactly, is your tip?”  
  
Elice looked him in the eye. “This.”   
  
In a split second, she smashed the bottle over the bar counter and lunged forward with the broken end until it made contact with the soldier’s face. He screamed, falling to the ground with Elice on top of him. She rolled forward and came up crouching, her hood back and her dagger in her hand. The torches blazed bright and fierce.   
  
The soldier writhed on the ground, clutching his bloody face. For a moment, the entire rest of the bar was too stunned to react.   
  
And then everything went to hell.  
  
Glass smashed. Chairs and tables got shoved out of the way. The other two guards rushed forwards. Elice spun out of the way of another halberd, her cloak spinning out and revealing the Brazier buckled to her arm to all three soldiers, all the tavern patrons, and the bartender.   
  
The soldier that’d missed staggered back. “T-the Brazier-bearer!”  
  
Julian sighed. “I’m so sorry, Princess Nyna.” Then he leapt up and stabbed the unlucky soldier in the back of the neck, kicking him aside into his buddy. He fell back, but recovered, drawing his own halberd and charging for Julian. Elice slammed him in the face with the Brazier at the same moment a long, sharp arrow punched clean through his neck. He was dead before he hit the ground.   
  
The first soldier was still alive, gasping and struggling. One of the hooded figures casually walked over, put a boot on his back, drew his shortbow, and shot him in the back of the head. The struggling stopped.  
  
The barkeep and anyone else who knew better had already fled, scattered into the Bulford back alleys, leaving the bar empty save for Elice, Julian, and the two hooded figures— one holding a bow and the other seemingly unarmed.   
  
“So,” the archer said. “Brazier-bearer, huh?”  
  
Elice glanced at her arm. “What was your first clue?”  
  
“Let me guess,” he continued. “You’re not just a traveler.”  
  
“Who’s asking?” Elice replied, jabbing her chin at him.   
  
The archer pulled his hood back. He had long, blond hair, rough, sunburned skin, a thick scarf of faded red yarn, and a small, lopsided smile.   
  
“One-Armed Jeorge,” he said. “My friends just call me Jeorge.”  
  
“I can’t help but notice that you have two arms,” Elice said.   
  
One-Armed Jeorge did, in fact, have two arms. He shrugged. “Army nickname. Long story. And you must be—“   
  
“Princess Elice!” the other figure sighed in relief and in a very familiar voice. When he pulled his hood down, Elice could see why. “Thank goodness! Did you get my letter?”  
  
Elice felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. “Gods, Merric, _you’re_ a sight for sore eyes,” she said.   
  
Merric shrugged and grinned. He’d grown a few inches. His glasses were bent and one lens was cracked. But his bright green hair was still as tousled as ever, and his smile was still bright and warm. His dark purple Khaedin mage robes were a little frayed, the silver ornamentation a bit dirty from what had undoubtedly been a _very_ long trip, but he was there— another friend Elice hadn’t seen since before Altea fell, alive and smiling.   
  
“You must be the source of the whispers I’ve heard, about a hero coming to defeat the Empire,” Jeorge said, nodding to Julian. “The Insurgent Heir of Altea. Brazier-bearer. Princess Nyna’s Champion. I’m sure they’ll come up with more titles in time, especially if you keep pulling stunts like that one, your highness.”

"Insurgent Heir?" Elice repeated. "That's a new one. I'd thought it was Insurgent Princess. Not that I'm complaining."  
  
“Right, yes, that stunt,” Julian agreed. “Can we talk about that stunt? All due respect granted to royalty and all that song and dance, but _Naga’s scaly tits_ , what were you _thinking?”_  
  
Elice pursed her lips. “Well, I… wasn’t,” she admitted. “We should probably move just in case these idiots had backup outside.”  
  
Jeorge’s face turned grave. “Agreed. We’re far from out of the woods. But I must ask— what of Princess Nyna? Is she alright?”   
  
“She’s fine, as much as anyone could be in her shoes,” Elice promised. “She’ll want to see you, though. Once we’re back at camp, we can discuss everything else.”   
  
Jeorge put his hood back up. “Lead the way,” he said. He glanced around. “Quickly, I think, would be best. I’m still _kind_ of a wanted criminal.”  
  


* * *

  
  
As expected, nobody was exactly thrilled to hear about Elice starting a bar fight and killing three Dolhrian soldiers, least of all Jagen. But Elice had heard it all time and time again and clearly didn’t intend to stop, so eventually he sighed and gave up.   
  
Nyna had stayed in the camp, which was definitely the safest option. She looked more visibly disheveled than Elice had ever seen her— her hair, still braided and pinned up behind her head like it had been since they left Aurelis, had lost a few of the pins keeping it in place, and strands had escaped no matter how much she tried to stuff them back in. Her arm was still bandaged, and it’d scraped enough of her bicep that moving it was painful and difficult. It rested in a sling to keep it from getting jostled too much. There were bags under her eyes, but somehow, somehow she still managed to have the same gravitas, tangible no matter which way Elice turned and no matter how far away she was— radiating authority and presence like the sun gave heat.   
  
Jeorge took a knee before her in the middle of the hastily-made camp. “Your highness,” he said. She held out her hand, picturesque, passive, impartial. Jeorge took it and pressed a kiss to her knuckles with all the solemnity and respect of a knight to his queen.   
  
“Ser Jeorge,” Nyna replied. She was as serious as ever for about two and a half seconds, and then couldn’t stop the smile creeping into her eyes. “Oh, stand back up. I hate it when friends try to kneel for me.”  
  
Jeorge stood. He chuckled. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you, Lady Nyna. After Pales… well, it was a relief to hear that you were safe in Aurelis, but that’s nothing compared to seeing you in person.”  
  
Nyna faltered, just a tiny bit. “It’s good to see you again, as well,” she said. “But we haven’t time for pleasantries. What news do you have on the state of Archanea?”  
  
Jeorge grimaced. “Not… great,” he admitted. “There’s no real organized resistance. Nobody’s enslaved the people or started killing them for sport or anything, but there are some uncomfortable rumors about what Medeus plans for the country once he’s conquered the whole continent. In the case, of course, that he does,” he added. “Which he won’t, of course. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”  
  
“Have you heard anything from Linde at all?” Nyna asked. “What of Midia? Tomas? Boah?”   
  
“I… haven’t heard anything,” Jeorge admitted. “I’m sorry, Lady Nyna. The last time I saw anyone of the Royal Guard was when we were imprisoned in Pales, and to my knowledge, I was the only one to escape.”   
  
Nyna’s face didn’t change much, but the look in her eyes did. “I see,” she said.   
  
“But, well, it wasn’t a very well-managed imprisonment,” Jeorge added quickly. “For all I know, I was just the _first_ to escape, not the _only_ one. I mean, ser Midia is the strongest knight I know. If I could get out, then surely she could.”   
  
That made her feel a little bit better. “Thank you, Jeorge,” she said. “So I can assume that you’re planning to stay?”  
  
Jeorge bowed his head. “Wherever you go, my lady,” he said. Then he turned to Elice. “And that is, of course, if _you’ll_ have me, Princess Elice.”   
  
“I’d be a fool to say no,” Elice replied. “And we’ve only got one other archer now, anyway— look for Gordin. You’ll be working with him.”   
  
Jeorge nodded politely. “I’ll be off, then,” he said. “Thank you, your highness.”  
  
Jeorge excused himself. Nyna let out a breath, letting her shoulders lower just a touch. For a moment, she looked almost sad. Then she remembered Elice was there and straightened up.  
  
“Jeorge is the best sniper that the Archanean Army has to offer,” she said. “More than that, he’s a disciplined and trained soldier and a trustworthy man, as well. I’ve known him for most of my life.”   
  
Elice chuckled. “Aww, childhood friends.”   
  
Nyna smiled wryly. “In essence, yes.”   
  
“Well, Naga knows we need the help,” Elice admitted. “I wasn’t expecting him to show up with Merric, though, that’s for sure.” She nodded her chin in Merric’s direction. As one would expect, he’d gravitated towards Skylark and Caeda, being around their age. Caeda was friendly in return. Skylark was significantly less so. Unfortunately, Merric didn’t notice.  
  
“I’ve heard so many stories about the Macedonian Harbingers,” he was saying, hovering around Skylark while she was trying to pack ration boxes. “I mean, _everyone_ knows about mounts and magic— that’s why most magic-users are infantry, right. But the _Harbingers_ can cast from the sky, and I’ve always been fascinated why, right, because what _is_ it about the Harbingers that allows them to use magic while on wyvernback? Do you know? I’ve wondered if it’s a special breed of wyvern bred to be more compatible with magical energy, or perhaps something in their armor, or—“   
  
“Do I _look_ like I know fuck-all about the Harbingers?” Skylark cut him off. “Talk to someone who _cares_ , poindexter.”  
  
Maric blinked and adjusted his glasses. “Well, nobody else here is anywhere near Macedonian,” he said, as if that explained everything. “No one else would be able to answer my questions.”  
  
“Die mad about it,” Skylark replied, dropping another ration box into the crate. “I know enough about the military to know who to my boss is and who my squadmates are. Anything else is above my pay grade.”  
  
“Ah. Alright.” Maric nodded. “But do you ever wonder...“  
  
Elice grimaced. “He’s… better at magic than he is at making friends,” she admitted. “But we don’t have a combat mage yet, aside from you. It’ll be good to have some firepower.”  
  
Nyna hummed. “Indeed,” she said. She cast her gaze around the little camp and everyone going about their business, but she didn’t look quite like she was seeing what was in front of her, more like she was seeing something else entirely— a different place, a different time. She looked sorrowful, Elice thought. Sorrowful and very, very tired.  
  
“We have some time before dinner’s ready,” Elice said, breaking the silence. Nyna blinked, startled back into reality. “It’s a good time to try and clean up a little. And keeping your hair up for that long can’t be comfortable.”  
  
“Oh,” Nyna recalled. “Right, yes. My hair.” She reached up with her good hand to stuff a loose strand back behind her ear. It slithered out with three new friends in about half a second.   
  
Elice took a chance. “Let me help you with it,” she suggested. “I’d imagine it’s pretty hard to do one-handed, and it wouldn’t be good to strain that arm of yours.”  
  
Nyna blinked. For a moment, she looked off her guard. But she cleared her throat primly and straightened up, as much as she could with one bad arm. “Well, I suppose it would be more efficient,” she admitted. “And I suppose that, of the people available, you are an… _adequate_ choice.”  
  
Elice rolled her eyes. “Damn, princess, tell me how you really feel.” But, she supposed, Nyna wouldn't be Nyna if she said her compliments outright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 14x: _Lionheart:_ https://archiveofourown.org/works/14362050/chapters/42613844
> 
> is it gay? itd damn well better be


End file.
